Endgame
by phoenixx2812
Summary: When Lisbon's past comes back to haunt her she is forced to make some radical decisions. Meanwhile Jane starts to wonder if he ever knew the real Lisbon. It doesn't help either of them that they also have to deal with their confusing feelings for each other. MULTI-CHAPTER / goes AU mid 6x12 and slight spoiler for 6x16
1. The Opening

**A/N:** So here I am with my first FanFic ever. Don't want to bother you with too much jabber. But obviously I have, and want to, thank my two Beta's safronia (who was so kind to offer her help on twitter) and (after finally having the guts to ask her) wimmer511, whose own fanfics I love, therefore it is a huge honor to have you betaing for me. Thank you two so much for doing this! - And now, here we go :)

Disclaimer: Yeah, surprise, I do not own "The Mentalist" or any of its characters. Meh...

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***Chapter 1*: The Opening**

xxxxx

"_Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.__" -Roger Ebert_

xxxxx

"Yes Jane, I just got home. Thanks for checking," Lisbon said in sing-song voice, amused about Jane's new habit of checking-in-if-you-got-home-safely calls, as if she needed those, she was a cop for heaven's sake.

"But you're still outside, don't try to deny it, I can hear the wind whistling through the trees," Jane answered equally pleasant. "I'll just stay on the phone until you're in."

Lisbon sighed, "You know I could just hang up, right?"

"You could, but you won't." Damn him. Why did he sound as if that was a foregone conclussion? Oh right, because it was. Damn herself.

"Alright, but I'm really, _really _tired. After your damn stunt Cho and I had to run all across Central Park to catch Stephen's and then walk all the way back to the cars."

Yes she was exhausted, and not only the unwanted fitness training was the reason for this, no a certain blonde haired consultant had babbled on about his new airstream for the whole of the three and a half hour flight back to Austin, sitting in the middle seat she'd had no way to escape. So Lisbon was naturally grateful to finally plug the keys in the door of her house and enter blissful silence.

She had purchased her new residence just two months ago and there were still some boxes to unpack. The house lay close to Zilker Botanical Gardens, stood secluded by a small forest with her own driveaway and had two floors. The basement contained the hall, livingroom, kitchen, bathroom and the bedroom. Winding stairs led up to the second floor which had two additional rooms, the smaller one in which, for now, the unpacked boxes rested and a bigger one she'd turned into a home office, as well as an extra bathroom with a tub. It was a small house, but homy.

Despite the unpacked boxes she would make sure her new house wouldn't end up like her condo back in Sacramento. In Cannon River she had obtained her first own property, though her job had been less paid than her previous one, the lack of a social-life had secured her with a good filled bank account. And she had loved it -especially the fireplace.

So naturally the first thing she told her real estate agent in Austin was to look for a small house with a fireplace in it. Not being responsible for Jane's antics anymore meant a lot less paperwork and therefore more time spend at home and she wanted to enjoy this time in front of a cosy fire and a glass of wine.

"You're in yet?" Lisbon heard Jane ask, the phone pressed between her ear and shoulder.

"Uh yeah, I am."

"Good...oh, did I mention the microwave I bought last week?"

Gazing at herself in the entrance mirror, a new one, the one she had in Washington sadly hadn't made the journey unscaffed, she let Jane talk about his new microwave while she kept wondering about the changes she made during the past years.

She had had to actually learn what is was like to slow down and just look at the world and enjoy its beauty. Something she'd never done before becoming a Police Chief of a small town in which a drunken man who'd managed to smash the local pub into pieces had been the most exciting crime during her eighteen months stay. Even worse, the owner of the pub had already knocked the lights out of him when they'd arrived, so there hadn't even been a little chase involved-hence her grown knowledge of things she never thought she needed to know. She'd really had a lot of reading time on her hands.

She'd been restless during the six months after the CBI had fallen. She wasn't used being without something to do. It was also during this time that she truly understood how much the team had meant to her. They had become her family, every single one of them. Although she had mended ties with her brothers after Tommy and Annie had left again, they were too far away to really _be _family. They were tied by blood and she loved them, but Cho, Rigsby and Grace had proven to her that blood wasn't necessarily thicker than water. They were just as important to her as her siblings, even when she hadn't shown it that much on an emotional level.

And Jane...well she was never really sure what kind of relationship they had. More than often he reminded her of the time when she had to raise her three brothers because her father hadn't been able to. They were a handful in their teenage years, but Jane had managed the same amount of annoyance single-handedly. It was always a mixed feeling like a mother dealing with an ADHD child, or the older sister who at times was allowed to enjoy his antics. And then there were the times they'd flirted, and she had to confess the line between what was simply teasing and what wasn't had blurred more than once and she'd had to remind herself just as often of who he was and why he was working for the CBI in the first place. She never really thought about Jane _that way _at the beginning, sure he was handsome and charming and incredibly intelligent, but the baggage and past he carried around had reminded her too much of her dad to even start fantasizing about him in any inappropriate way.

With years passing though that invisible line between them had started to turn into a zigzag line and it became harder and harder to not overstep it. After the whole Vegas debacle and the minor detail of Lorelei she had completely stopped pretending he was asexual and the fact she hadn't dated often hadn't exactly helped to not let her mind wander off to the _what-if_ scenarios. His _confession, _if one wanted to call it that, had also fueled those specific thoughts.

So by the time they found themselves in the whirlwind of Red John's demise her feelings had been all tangled up. She'd been confused, not knowing what to make of these emotions, she wasn't even sure what exactly they were. Of course Jane once again had taken the burden of contemplating these feelings off her when he'd run after killing McAllister. He was gone and therefore anything she might have or might not have felt were naught.

In the months in between that fateful day and her moving to CR she came to the conclusion that her feelings about Jane weren't that surprising. He'd been literally the only man at her side for a decade and despite his tendencies to wreak havoc he'd always cared for her. His ability to know what she felt when she felt it and why and what she needed had also made it really hard for other man to catch her interest, even if she'd been looking, which she hadn't.

"Do you know what I'm supposed to do?...Lisbon? You're still there?"

It took her moment to gather what he'd asked her. "Yes Jane, I'm still here...and all you have to do is pushing the start button," Lisbon answered his previous question, chuckling silently at her unintentional double entendre.

Jane's mixed signals over the years taken into account, Lisbon surmised, she was bound to start thinking about what it would be like with him in a romantic relationship. But that was it, she'd been lonely and so of course her mind had conspired against her and used her best friend Jane as a proxy to explain and defend her reasons for being alone. It had been a relief to finally understand her feelings for what they were and that meant her best friend was still that, her best friend, even if he would never come back.

Jane's letters had finally given her peace; his way of writing them had been one of the reasons she kept every single one. The way he'd described his exile, the beaches, the ocean, the plants, the animals, the children, everything he'd written seemed to come off the page in technicolor. Every letter read was like watching a movie in HD. The world was a beautiful place if you looked past the darkness. If Jane could see it, she had no reason not to.

With new vigor she'd applied to the job in Cannon River and with that had also come the house of the last Chief who'd moved to Seattle. It was a sign from heaven.

Luckily this state of mind held on so far-despite moving and more work again.

Hearing Jane cursing the hightech kitchen gadget in the background, she couldn't help but compare old versus new Jane. There were so many things that hadn't changed at all, like his love for tea or his naps on a specific brown couch. But he finally chose to have an actual home. Okay, a trailer still implied a certain rootlessnesss, but it was a place to actually live in, unlike a lo-fi motel room for example.

She wasn't sure what it meant that he chose to have a home that would surely remind him of the old days, his carney childhood and with that the start of his psychic ways. But hopefully the good memories, like Pete and Sam and of course meeting and falling in love with Angela, would outweigh the unpleasant one's.

For her everything was almost back to normal, but everything was still entirely new. Not being the boss made things way easier though it was still strange to have Cho in particular give her orders. Lisbon knew she'd get used to it eventually, being in a leading position for such a long time left a certain mark on you which wasn't just going to go away, but first and foremost she was a professional and so she just would have to suck it up. And who knew maybe one day she'd be back in the saddle, she would definitely work hard for it and proof that she wasn't just part of the FBI because Jane demanded it. Abbott and Fischer seem to have started to see that she earned her desk in the bureau. But Lisbon knew it was still a long way to go.

"Hah, it worked Lisbon," Jane's excited voice cut through her thoughts.

"Congrats, so I can rest assured you won't be starving to death then, huh," Lisbon teased. Then the buzzing from her phone tickled her cheek.

"Ha ha, you know..." Jane started but Lisbon interrupted his rejoinder. "Hold on a second."

Checking who sent the text message that had arrived, she wasn't surprised to find it was from Marcus. Lisbon smiled to herself, putting the cellphone back to her ear.

"Jane? I'm sorry, but I just got a text from Marcus. I really should answer him," Lisbon said apologetically.

On the other end of the line there was silence, but then Jane seemed to find his voice again. "Uh, right. You should...uh, good night, Lisbon. And thanks for the help. See you tomorrow." When Jane hung up Lisbon stared at the phone in der hands for a moment before she laid it down on the commode in front of her.

Thoughts drifting back to what happened between her and Jane a few days ago, in a New Yorker cold storage. Oh no, she so wasn't going to touch that, not even with a ten foot pole. It had been embarassing, and so redundant, she still blamed the arctic cold for meddling with her brain. She was lucky Jane was so good at denial himself.

Tearing her eyes away from the mirror, she threw the keys in the little bowl on the commode and removed her jacket. Taking off her shoes, she grabbed the phone again and stepped into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. A little smile crossed her face upon entering the living room. It looked almost exactly like her previous one in Washington and that pleased her immensely, the familiarity helped with the bigger changes she'd had to make.

Setting the glass on the coffee table Lisbon's thoughts drifted to safer places, namely Marcus Pike. Unit chief of the art crime team. Dark hair, chocolate brown eyes, intelligent, charming and he had that certain edge-a man's man, a real dude. He wasn't the tallest guy, but given her rather short height he was perfect. And so far she couldn't find any major fault, except that he definitely supported the wrong football team, the Washington Redskins, pleeease. Then again he supported his home team, just as she did, so not really a flaw she supposed.

Lisbon didn't exactly believe in fate but since she believed in a higher power it had been a revelation Marcus originated from the state she'd lived in until seven months ago. On their first night out she told him about Cannon River although he confessed to have no clue where that was. He was a city kid, just like her and admitted to not being very fond of camping, just like her. And she had to admit she liked Marcus, very much. He'd made her laugh several times during their "dinner"at the local Austin cop diner. Now for some women that would be a total no go, but it was more than fine with her. She wasn't one of those chicks who needed candle light, a meal that was so expensive you wondered if they'd hidden gold in it, or having to squeeze herself in a dress to impress the guy opposite you. Marcus had seen that, seen _her _without even asking.

First she'd been suspicious or more like Jane had been suspicious, which then had made her suspicious, but it was a rather shortlived suspicion when Jane revealed the source of it. He was convinced Marcus must have gathered some secret information about her because how else would he know such distinct preferences of hers without even talking to her. When she'd pointed out that Jane knew stuff like that about people all the time without asking, the dumbfound expression on his face had been amusing. Jane really didn't like it when others were just as good as he was. Some things never changed.

Thinking about it, since she'd been on the occasional date with Marcus Jane was acting...weird. After the first date everything had been fine. Okay not exactly fine. When she hadn't been able to stop talking about Marcus and listing all the things they'd had in common Jane had interrupted her and told her how great that was but that they had a case to work. Really, she'd never thought she'd live to see the day Jane was more interested in a case than personal information, especially when she was the source of said information and giving it out freely on top of it. There was a first time for everything.

In the days following the second date Jane had retreated from her, explaining that he needed to _bond _with Cho a bit more cause he had the feeling Cho wasn't making a lot of friends here. Cho's face however made it clear he didn't feel the same. And three days later it looked as if Cho was constantly thinking up new ways of how to hide a body so not even the FBI would find it. She knew this feeling well.

That was also the time when she had to realized she was a bit angry with Jane's behavior. The moment he stops being the center of her attention he starts pouting and acting like a puppy she just kicked. He was her friend, best friend even, she had spent enough time sorting her feelings out on the matter, but instead of encouraging her he acted like she took away his favorite toy. That's what if felt like to him probably. Over a decade long Jane had been the center of her universe. He had a problem, or was causing a problem, which was more likely, she was the one there to sort it out. And he knew it. It was like she had an inner Jane radar that deflected the moment he got one of his outrageous ideas.

So she assumed it was odd for him to realize he wasn't her sole point of being anymore. Of course he hadn't really been for two years, but Lisbon had come to understand that for Jane the start of working with the FBI equalled the end of the CBI and the two years in between hadn't happened. But they had. And he was an adult man and not an eight-year-old who was envious of mum's new boyfriend. Marcus wasn't even her boyfriend...yet, though it was definitely going in the right direction.

Answering Marcus text and telling him she would love to accompany him to the next game in Houston, as long as no case torpedoed their plans, she felt a tiny bit of guilt creeping up, but then, nothing bad had actually happend besides her damn emotions playing rollercoaster with her.

He answered not a minute later that he'd be looking forward to it.

Sitting down on the cream colored couch she sorted through her mail: bill, bill, bill, adverts, bill, advert and an envelope...without a returning address. Frowning, Lisbon set the pile of bills aside. Opening the envelope she took out the piece of paper in it.

For a short moment Lisbon thought Jane may have decided to continue the letter writing, which made her heart strangely flutter. _Oh stop it, Teresa_. She was beginning to feel like she'd cheated on Marcus, which was ridculous. Unfolding the paper and skimming its content, Lisbon all of a sudden felt her blood run cold and her breathing hitch.

This couldn't be real. This was surely a joke. Rereading the lines slowly however made it chrystal clear it wasn't a one and that left only one thought: _He has found me._

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Lisbon was tired. She hadn't slept...much. She supposed she had napped at some point when the exhausting day had decided to finally catch up with her body. The few hours she'd gotten weren't nearly enough but she guessed that meant the letter she received yesterday had already partly succeeded in its purpose.

Getting up from the armchair she had pushed into the furthest corner of the living room between the big shelf and the window, she stretched, noticing the pain rushing through her bones. Right now she had no idea how she'd get through the day without randomly falling asleep.

Before making her way to the kitchen for some coffee she leaned close to the window frame and peered out into the small garden. Nothing. No movements except for some birds chirping in the trees. _Don't be paranoid, Teresa, there's nothing out there,_ Lisbon reproached herself.

Still in the same clothes from yesterday she made her way to the kitchen but stopped in the hallway. Starbucks wasn't so far away, she could get her caffeine from there just as well. There was of course the matter of her clothing but she'd left her travel bag in the car last night, that should do.

Putting on her boots, grabbing her leather jacket and keys she casts another look in the mirror to check her appearance. Well the bags under her eyes would be telling for her lack of sleep but other than that she looked astonishingly fine, a bit of additional make-up and she'd be okay.

Opening the front door slowly Lisbon watched what she could behold of the street._ Oh stop it, he won't be waiting on your porch at sunlight._ At least that's what she hoped. Shaking herself awake one more time she made her way to her SUV, taking a quick glance around she decided to better be safe than sorry and got down on the ground to inspect the underside of the car. Everything seemed fine. Lisbon was about to open the door when she decided to take a few steps back onto her porch, hesitating for a split second Lisbon turned her body away from the car before pushing the button that would automatically unlock the doors.

Hearing nor feeling any explosion she took a deep breath, glancing around once again and got into the car. She had plenty of time to change her clothes and get her coffee before driving to work. _One advantage of a sleepless night_, she thought and left the parking lot.

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Since they had wrapped up the New York case yesterday, all that was left was the usual paperwork which didn't take long. The extra strong cup of her favorite brew had helped her shaking off a bit of the tiredness that wreaked havoc on her body and with the hour clock ticking away she was positive she'd be fine by afternoon. She was not in her twenties anymore but she was still fit and one night without sleep wouldn't kill her. She tried not to think about what had brought on the sleepiness night, though it was easier said than done.

Not helping getting her thoughts off that specific topic were the eyes staring at her back all morning long. Jane had greeted her as usual, bringing her a second cup of coffee, she had never been so thankful for one, and retreated to his couch to take a morning nap as there was nothing for him to do while everyone else was figuratively continuing to help murder the rainforest as he so cheerfully put it.

At 10.30 however, Jane had ended his nap and apparently wasn't in any mood to read a book, but rather stared holes into her back.

"Anything I may help you with Jane?" Lisbon asked without turning around.

She heard him sitting up. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"Well, you don't, you just keep staring at me."

"What can I say Lisbon, it's a lovely sight." Lisbon could hear the smile in his voice and couldn't repress a smirk of her own. "But since you've started it, is there something I can help you with?" he asked.

Lisbon paused her typing for a second and knew that alone would tip him of, lying was also out of the question, but half a lie might work, if she kept on looking dutifully at the screen.

"Not really, I haven't slept well, not at all to be precise, something you should be an expert at, but I doubt you can help me with it," Lisbon told him, all the while never taking her eyes off the screen.

"I hope my grumbling stomach didn't keep you awake, dear. Anyway, I wouldn't say there's _no _way that I couldn't help you Lisbon, there's always..."

"NO," she cut him off and spun around. "You're not going to hypnotize me, period." Lisbon glared at Jane before facing the monitor again adding, "Listen, it's fine, everyone has some bad nights now and again, nothing to worry about. I was pretty keyed up yesterday. I'm sure tonight I'm gonna sleep like a baby," she said, her voice hitching just a tiny bit. _Oh crap_.

Jane studied her for some time. Yes she was definitely hiding something. If he wouldn't be worried it would amuse him that she still couldn't control her voice when she was trying to lie, especially after he pointed her tell out to her. But then again the fact his Lisbon was such an honest person was one of the things he lov...liked about her the most.

He also knew pressuring her into telling him wouldn't do, she'd only close off more. He just hoped for _Marcus, _the damn call-interrupter_, _he wasn't the reason for her sleeplessness...in which way ever or he'd regret it. Maybe a third cup of coffee would help her with the tiredness. Getting up and taking off towards the break room he stopped at her desk.

"Lisbon, if there's anything you want to talk about, you know I'm here...right?" Lisbon gaped at his retreating form for a while, pondering if she should just tell him about the letter.

Dismissing any such thought right away she hoped Jane wouldn't start digging once he sniffed the bone buried in the ground.

It was safer that way. For everyone.

xxxxxxxxxx

In the afternoon they got a new case. A double murder in Austin, not too far from the HQ, which according to the APD had signs of a professional background, which is why they called on the FBI to take over. Abbott told the team as long as they had no other evidence to go on they would treat this as a normal murder case.

Arriving with two cars in front of a large exclusive looking building, Lisbon was surprised to see it was settled in a rather noisy neighborhood. Detective Slater welcomed them and filled them in on what they'd found out so far. Fischer then sent the rest of the team inside while she stood back clearing everything with else with Slater.

Entering the hall it showed no signs of anything disturbing, not even the front door of the apartment, in which they knew the bodies were still in, was harmed. They finally came to stand in the hall of 's Apartment, who was one of the two victims.

The table in the middle of it was bumped over and the vase that probably had been on top of it lay shattered a few meters away.

A cop lead them further into the living room in which the murder had happened. Two bodies were sprawled on the ground. The older one, presumably Townsend, had slightly gray hair and lay on his back. His head was tilted to the sight, blood coming out of his mouth. He'd caught two shots, one in the forehead and the other one close to the area around his heart.

The younger man Jason Reilly, late thirties, according to Sergeant Miller, had five shots in his body. Two similar to Townsend's, just that the bullets in his body had been shot in the back instead of the front and Miller pointed out Reilly had gotten three additional shots in his legs to the front.

Jane who already had gotten down on his knees in between the two corpses, spoke up then. "He must have fallen over when the shots went into his legs. Once down the killer made sure to kill him off with the shots to his head and heart."

Cho crossed his arms. "He wanted to help Townsend; he attacked their assaulter, that's why he had to stop him with the shots to the legs. After that the old man was an easy target."

"The bullets to the head and torso look professional to me. Even when Reilly was already down he still killed Townsend with two precise shots that isn't an easy thing to do. APD was right. Whoever did this wasn't only a good shot but knew how not to draw attention," Lisbon surmised.

"And still he drew enough attention for someone to call the Police," Jane replied as he got up again to take a walk around the room. Taking in the beautiful painting of an old clipper ship that struggled in the rough sea.

"Yeah that's weird. He killed them rather fast, no fight, and a professional would have used a silencer." Lisbon focused from the corpses back to Jane.

"Cho what exactly did the caller say?" Jane asked turning to look at the asian man who took out his small notebook.

"Caller said they heard some crashing in Apartment 325A, first they thought it was a fight, but minutes later heard a few shots right before the main door was slammed shut."

Lisbon shifted her eyes to Cho, away from the same painting Jane had been looking at. "Name?"

"None. Anonymous caller."

"Huh," Jane's eyebrows shot up. "Interesting."

"Jane," Lisbon sighed heavily. She was in no mood for his holding back on things. Lately she hadn't that much of a problem with it, but she guessed the previous night was making her more itchy.

"Well, think about it Lisbon, we have an anonymous caller who claims to have heard shots and a crashing, which he concluded was a fight and then a slamming of the door." Jane looked at her. "This was a professional; the only signs of a struggle we could find was the bumped table in the hall, which we can be certain of had nothing to do with this." Jane pointed at the two dead men before continuing. "So how did the caller manage to be aware of a "fight" if there was none. And I'm pretty sure our suspect did indeed use a silencer. By seven shots that got fired you'd think a few more people would have called, Slater mentioned the other tenants were all at home, but all of them said to not have made the anonymous call, plus why would a killer slam the front door shut when he just successfully killed his targets-to get attention?...meh."

Lisbon rubbed her temples. "Right. And why not leave a name. Slater said no one here had any knowledge of what was going on before APD showed up and questioned them. Correct?" Lisbon turned her eyes on Cho.

"Yeah. Only Mrs. Oliver from 326B said she'd heard some _unusual noises, _whatever that means, around some time before the call was made."

Jane by now had finished his snooping around tour and came to stand next to Lisbon. "I want to talk to her. APD took the statements, they probably missed something."

"Has anything been taken?," Lisbon asked, ignoring Jane's request.

"According to APD nothing seems to be out of place."

"Any relative who could make sure of that?"

Cho took his phone and called Wylie's number then put it on speaker. The young IT answered after one ring. "Wylie, do Jason Reilly or Jonathan Townsend have any relatives?"

Cho could hear keys being hit. "Uh...Reilly has...uh _had _a girlfriend, name's Caroline Hawthorne but the apartment belonged to Townsend, no living relatives here."

"Thanks. Send me the address of the girlfriend."

"It'll arrive faster than a plane, Choman," Wylie said and hung up. Unknowingly leaving a man behind who for the first time in his life actually turned slightly red.

Jane and Lisbon smirked at Cho's unusual embarrassment. Last week Cho had saved Wylie from being beat to a pulp in a local bar where the team had their first case-closed beer. It wasn't Pizza but hey, it was a start. All but Abbott had joined. When Wylie had made a comment about a man's wardrobe, he wasn't aware of the implicated insult in his statement and therefore hadn't seen the fist coming towards him, Cho had though. It hadn't been a big deal really, but Wylie had gazed at Cho with so much adoration it had been comical and then told Cho he was like his personal Superman...hence _Choman_, at least to Wylie. No need to say Cho wasn't a big fan of his new nickname, but Wylie didn't get the message so far.

Jane tapped his bottom lip with his index finger before addressing Lisbon and Cho. "Next Mrs. Oliver." It occurred to Lisbon it wasn't a question. Jane wanted to speak to the woman, so he would.

On their way out something caught Jane's eye and he bowed down to pick it up. A ring. Nothing flashy.

"Seems to be a men's ring," Jane mused, examining it further.

"Maybe Jason's," Cho said.

"No. Not the ring type. Ah, there's an engraving inside. No idea what language that is though," Jane said. "You have any idea?"

Jane held it out for Lisbon and Cho to see. When Jane looked back up he noticed Lisbon's eyes had widened though she tried to mask it when their eyes met.

"You know what this means?" he asked and now Cho as well was looking at her.

"No, how woud I?" she said. Luckily she had remembered in the last moment to not be too quick with that statement. Jane didn't look convinced anyhow, but let it slight; for which she was grateful, she wasn't sure if she could even come up with anything close to a convincing lie. "I'm just surprised you don't."

"My memory palace has a special room for languages that are useful, like _latin _for example," Jane wasn't deterred by the incredulous look he received from both his colleagues, "but I have to admit I already struggled with spanish, at least if my vacation time is anything to go by. Guess we have to use FBI resources then."

Just as Jane was about to put the ring in his pant's pocket Cho grabbed it from him and stuffed in a plastic bag which made Jane roll his eyes. "Really Cho? It has my fingerprints all over it anyway."

"Which is bad enough," Cho replied, zipping the bag.

"Meh, wasn't the killers, no harm done."

"You can't know that, Jane."

"Yes I can," Jane said exuberant, throwing a fist in the air to emphasize his words while sporting a cocky grin.

"This isn't the White House, Obama. You don't know, end of story." Cho countered.

"And here I thought there were no such thing as psychics?" Lisbon could swear Cho smirked a little bit.

"And that is very true but I doubt our assassin came in here without gloves on and than on top of it all lost a ring in a fight that never happened for good meassure," Jane explained followed by another smug grin.

Lisbon eyed the bag with the ring again. "Still, maybe there was a second man. Have you thought about that?," Lisbon directed the question to no one in particular and both men stared at her with something close to wonder. And Jane looked actually thoughtful about what she'd said, which made her proud.

Walking outside she heard Jane say behind her. "Very good Lisbon, although probably wrong, who would need two assassins to kill two men."

"I never said the second was an assassin. Could've been anyone. Who knows how long the ring had been lying there."

Jane came to a sudden halt, making Cho smash into him, with a bright smile on his face. He beamed at Lisbon even though she couldn't see it. He was proud of her and he meant it. She always had good instincts, but his presence at the CBI, he assumed, had undermined it because she was too busy trying to keep him in line.

Being shoved aside by Cho he looked at him, still beaming.

Cho lifted his left eyebrow and muttered something Jane only could make out the last part of, "...than Rigsby." He had no idea what it meant. He then remembered he'd caught Cho saying the same thing two weeks ago while Jane was bonding with him.

Sorting through his memory palace he remembered the exact moment Cho had uttered these words. Cho and him had just been talking about a new book when _Marcus _had shown up bringing Lisbon a cup of coffee to her desk, as if he hadn't already done that..tsk. Jane shook his head at the memory. To his utter disbelief, Lisbon instead of telling _Marcus _that he Jane had already provided the necessary caffeine, thanked the man for this thoughtfulness and chatted with him as if they had nothing better to do. When he'd mentioned this to Cho that was when the Korean had turned back to his computer and mumbled the same words. But just like now Jane hadn't caught what was said before these two words because he was busy trying to kill _Marcus _with his eyes.

Looking back at Lisbon, Jane's smile turned into a frown.

As proud as he was, he felt confirmed in the suspicion that Lisbon wasn't feeling very well and he wasn't talking about the headache that seemed to be crawling up, she'd massaged her temples almost six times. Since working for the FBI Lisbon was freer, lighter in everything she said and did and yesterday night he was sure she had been that way when they all said their goodbyes.

But this morning she had been tense, in a way he had never seen her before, not even during the time Volker had harrassed her. He wondered what happened in one night to change her countenance so drastically. And why she wouldn't tell him. They were Partners after all, equals, if she felt bad or something was bothering her he wanted to know...well he always wanted to know but even more so now. _Marcus _wouldn't even recognize her mood swing, just because the agent fo Art's had guessed right that she didn't like ostentatious meals at upper-class restaurants didn't mean he knew her. Jane was also baffled as to why Lisbon was so impressed by this. _Marcus _had just guessed. Nothing to write home about.

Bringing his thoughts back on track there was the matter of the ring or rather the engraving of it. Her eyes had been a mixture of fear and as if she remembered something. When she'd caught him starring she realized it and put on a front. He smirked again, she really should know by now she couldn't hide things from him, especially her emotions. A memory from a few days ago surfaced in his mind, but he shoved it aside. No time to dwell on things past. She had made it clear yesterday that she didn't want to talk about it, suited him just fine.

Jane promised he would find out what made her anxious. He'd just needed to pay extra attention. Shouldn't be hard considering most of his attention already belonged to her.

Of course he needed to focus on the case as well, the misgiving this case might end up on the cold case file, made him worry though.

In the hall to the stairs they were joined by Fischer. "Anything?"

"Nope. Except you can tell Abbott that we have indeed, need to look for a professional assassin," Jane said before taking the steps to Mrs. Oliver's floor. Fischer's forehead wrinkled, and she focused on Lisbon who stayed back as Cho followed Jane upstairs.

"Is that certain?"

"It's Jane. So, yeah," Lisbon smirked, rubbing her temples again. A headache was the last thing she needed right now.

"You're alright?," Fischer watched Lisbon with concern.

Since their little night out they had kept going out occasionally. Lisbon had never realized before how much she had missed having a friend, especially one who understood what it meant to fight your way up as a woman in a man's world. Kim seemed to appreciate the same about her. She had told her about her parents who were both lawyers and had pushed her since her childhood to work hard and become something people would look up to. Lisbon didn't need Jane's mentalist skills to have heard the bitterness leaking through. At one point Kim had said talking to her would be better than talking to a shrink, somehow Lisbon had the feeling it hadn't been a joke.

"I'm fine. Just didn't sleep a lot. And a headaches probably on the way."

"There's some aspirin in the car if you need it. I guess Cho can handle Jane up there. I'd like to talk to some other neighbors," Fischer answered making her way to the Townsend's direct neighbor. Lisbon followed on her heels, once more rubbing her temples.

This was shaping up to be a long day.

xxxxxxxxxx

One hour later they had finished the interviews. As it turned out the _weird noises _Mrs. Oliver had heard were the tenants of the Apartment right below hers who'd just returned from their honeymoon and were still very enthusiastic about their recent wedding.

The other Apartment owners weren't of much help either. No one had heard or seen anything. And everyone told them what a nice man Mr. Townsend had been. While everyone also knew that had been a frequent visitor, and that had described him as the son he'd never had. That had been about the extent of information they'd gathered. Bottomline, no one knew something about anything. Oh, joy.

Since this had been fruitless, Fischer hoped the girlfriend would be more of a help, so her and Jane made their way to Caroline Hawthorne.

Though Lisbon should've tagged along she excused herself saying she wanted to join Cho and Wylie at the HQ, and besides she could feel the headache coming. While walking to their cars Lisbon could feel Jane's scrutinizing eyes on her, but again he kept his mouth shut.

Jane on his part was seriously considering grabbing her and asking her what she was hiding. He hated it when she kept things from him, always had. The fact he could read her like a book and told her she was translucent was because she made it particularly easy. He'd never contemplated if she could do a decent job of it, if she really set her mind to it. Back in there, aside from the migraine, she had tried to mask her surprise, the fright, which had come with finding the ring. And he had to admit, she'd been good, her answer if she knew what the engraving meant was so dubious, he couldn't tell if she was lying or telling the truth.

This brought his thoughts back to her great acting when they wanted to convict Dr. Carmen. She had been fascinating to watch, a great actress. Back then he had been worried Carmen would see through the act, but Lisbon's devastation and having no other way to get a result had spurred her into the best performance of her life. The case had had him wondering at the time if she might not be that new to lying after all.

_Nonsense_, Jane thought. He knew his Lisbon, and she truly wasn't a liar at heart, nor would ever be. That being said, he also knew she would do her utter best to lie if she felt it was necessary.

xxxxx

"_A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous__." -Alfred Adler_

_xxxxx_

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**A/N:** Ok, so this is the first chapter, for everyone who wants to know what the mysterious letter said...well, I'm gonna have to ask you for a little patience. But I promise you, you will get to read it ;) But for now I would love to hear your opinio, and I'm looking forward to your guesses about what the hell is going on with Lisbon.

Also, for the people who don't like too much "interior monolog" but rather have dialogue, don't fret. There will be more interaction in upcoming chapters, but it's important to first get a bit inside Lisbon's (and also Jane's) head._  
_


	2. In Dreams

**A/N: **Many, many thanks to my wonderful beta wimmer511 who I dearly hope isn't getting any migraines from correcting, lol. And check out her fics 'In the Details' and 'Post Red' if you haven't already! They're are both amazing!

Also a big thank you to everybody who has followed/favorited this story, and to the ones who took the time to leave a review, they're are greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: Still don't own 'The Mentalist', to say it with Abbott: "It's a shame. A real shame."

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***Chapter 2*: In Dreams...**

xxxxx

"_Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream." ―Laozi_

xxxxx

Back at the Office Cho was deeply emerged in checking up on things about their two victims, alongside Wylie; the younger agent occasionally looking up at Cho with adoration, to which Cho seemed utterly oblivious. But who really knew what Cho was thinking. He'd been the only one back at the CBI to be, at least, somewhat opaque to Jane's penetrating gaze.

Lisbon smiled, watching the two of them out of the corner of her eyes. Being the boss back then didn't mean she had missed the brotherly relationship Cho and Rigsby had built throughout the years. She had been surprised to hear later, from Grace, that Cho wasn't in contact with them either. It had made her sad on more than one occasion. Somewhere deep inside she'd hoped all of them would stay in contact, and she never understood why Cho had just disappeared out of their lives. It still stung at times.

She'd been all the more grateful for the visits from Grace and Wayne, but every time they'd left they had also left a void. It wasn't surprising, when she thought about it, that it was especially after their visits she would take out Jane's letters, snuggle into her couch and re-read them. They'd been comforting in the wake of facing another lonely night, another lonely day ahead. While Wayne and Grace had each other, she had had no one. That had been a rather terrifying realization.

Statistically speaking she had spent half of her life working, and now had to face that, except for a nicely filled bank account, there was nothing else to show for it. To show to _someone_. When she told Jane she wanted to be remembered, years ago, she had meant it, but it hadn't occurred to her that there was no one in her life to do that. Yes, she might be remembered as a good cop, but there were so many of them, why would she stand out? Especially after the rather messy end of the CBI. They all had to start from scratch again. And now here she was in her early forties—alone. The dream she once had, of a family of her own, most likely gone. Of course she was fit and athletic, healthier at her age than many younger women were, so the chances for a child weren't totally out of the realm of possibilities—and there was also still the option of adoption. But hell, she'd just recently started dating again.

Thinking about a baby suddenly made her heart clench with bitterness, her hand unconsciously dropping to her stomach. _I'd be a terrible mother anyway, _she thought, realizing now that she had scribbled down on the desk pad. The name Sam was to spot. Biting the inside of her cheeks, hard, she furiously scratched through her doodling.

Thoughts returning to her loneliness, she mused, it was not all too wonderous it had been right after having this self-revelation that she went out on her first date since forever; with Agent Kane from organized crimes. She even told Jane about it, although more out of necessity. He was talking about painting Austin red that night, and conversationally asked her what she was planning on doing. When she told him Kane had asked her out he'd acted almost shocked. _Tsk, as if she couldn't have a date. _Jane's behavior then had been the same as it was now with Marcus. She had been disappointed that instead of being happy for her, he chose to insult Kane. What was it he'd said, oh yeah: _"Kane? Two words: Tassled loafers."_ So what, Jane didn't like his choice of shoes, pretty bold coming from a man who'd been wearing the same brown shoes since...well, since they'd met.

If she hadn't known better, she would have thought he was jealous, but she did know better. He was just irritated that she had a date. Fair enough, he never really knew her to date—except for Jeff and that was something she'd rather forget. But it had been just as irritating that he wouldn't let it go afterwards. He brought it up again later, stopped though when she refused to rise to the bait and just ignored whatever he was saying. That had been one odd day.

To make a long story short: the date was a disaster with a capital D. All the while she couldn't help but think about the damned loafers. Then Kane kept coming up with Shakespeare references to every single course they were served, and constantly brushed his hand through his brown curls when he got nervous, especially when he started talking about his ex-wife, who had left him with their five-year-old daughter, twelve years ago. _But _the final nail in the coffin to a possible second date had been, however, when Kane ordered _tea _of all things. Frankly, the whole evening had freaked her out. Good thing Marcus was just as much of a caffeine addict as she was.

Tearing her thoughts back to present day Lisbon cast one last glance at Cho and Wylie; Cho was grinning about something Wylie said, if the slight tuck on the side of his mouth was anything to go by. She hoped that despite the cold atmosphere within these walls, their new team could become just as much of a family as her old one, and, if she was inordinately lucky, she might even live to see it.

Sighing, Lisbon set upon going through some of the interviews they'd gathered. She had taken two aspirins in the car and the pounding in her head had blessedly stopped a little. About to open one of her e-mails, Lisbon was interrupted by her cellphone demanding her attention. She picked up without looking.

"Lisbon."

No answer. She waited for the caller to respond; but still, nothing.

"Hello? Who's there?" She frowned and looked at the caller ID: _Unknown_.

Pressing it back to her ear she listened harder, trying to perceive a noise, but there was no sound except a slight rustling in the line.

And then the caller hung up, and the line went dead.

Staring at the phone she glanced up to see if someone had witnessed the call, or lack of, but luckily everyone seemed busy. She swallowed hard and got back to her documents, casting her phone a pensive look. Even with no ID she knew, _felt, _who it was, and it made her heart pick up speed again. _Breath, Teresa, breathe. In and out, in and out. _Lisbon calmed herself down and wondered briefly if Wylie could trace the call back, despite its brevity_. And then what?_

No, this couldn't be helped. Everyone was better off not knowing. She had no one but herself to blame for the predicament she found herself in. Why should anyone else pay for this?

Then her eyes, popping up to oversee the bullpen, spotted Marcus walking through the corridor—heading for her desk. Apparently she wouldn't get a brake from anyone today.

"Hey Teresa," he smiled brightly. "I thought you might wanna grab something to eat. I was on my way out when I heard you guys came back from the scene," he said tucking his hands in his pant's pockets.

"Um, actually I'm not very hungry...headache," she explained, patting her head.

"And I thought that excuse was exclusive to another activity entirely," Marcus replied good-naturedly.

Lisbon chuckled and leaned back in her chair. "No excuse, unfortunately."

"You want a massage? My granny always used to say I have magical hands," he wiggled his fingers in front of her for emphasis.

"Maybe later. I don't think Abbott would be happy to see physical contact of any kind at work," Lisbon told him, glancing around to see if her boss was anywhere near. "I still feel like I need to prove myself, and make it clear that I'm more than some kind of parole officer for Jane. I'd rather keep everything strictly business here. You understand, right?" She eyed him quizzically. She knew what was said around the water cooler, that some of his colleagues had even asked Marcus what it was like to compete with someone like Jane. Hah, they couldn't be further from the truth.

"Sure," he answered curtly, making it clear he didn't understand at all. "You really don't want to have lunch? Could help with the headaches."

"No, really, but thanks. I've got to see through some things until Jane comes back from seeing the victim's girlfriend. He's always full of ideas, his brain absorbs every tidbit, and I better make sure he doesn't get himself into trouble with some outlandish idea he might have." Absent-mindedly she smiled fondly at remembering some of his most outrageous schemes he had come up with over time.

"Well, he's a grown man, I'm sure he can survive a few minutes without you," Marcus replied, trying hard to keep the edge out of his voice, that always came when the topic of Jane rose up. Talking about her consultant on their first date, and on every date after that, probably hadn't helped. But ten years of her life did feature Jane in a very dominant way, so unless she skipped a good percentage of her life, what was she supposed to talk about?

"You have no idea. Let him out of your sight for a second, and he could cause a national scandal. Trust me, I _know _him. I've worked with him for ten years after all!"

"A long time, indeed. The two of you must be like siblings," Marcus said nonchalantly, but she saw the gleam in his eyes, the same one Jane had when he was gauging someone's reaction.

"Well, I have three brothers and they're all brunette...so unless Jane's a brother from another mother..." Lisbon tried to joke, but going by Marcus' facial expression it fell flat.

"I guess." Was all he replied, to her surprise he leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek.

"You think you're up for a date some time this week?"

Lisbon shifted her eyes back to her monitor, as if she'd find the manual _'How To Answer This Question Correctly' _there.

"I-I...I'm not sure, we just got a new case...," she started and shrugged lightly. The tongue slowly wetting Marcus' lower lip told her it was the wrong answer.

"Riiight...why don't you just give me a call when you have time? The Houston game still stands though?" He asked and forced a soft smile back on his face.

"Of course."

He then began to rock back and forth on his heels in uncertainty_. Every time Jane does that it means..., _she started to think, but stopped mid-thought. Lisbon wanted to bang her head against her desk. She had enough problems to last her for a lifetime, which could very well be shorter than she'd ever anticipated. She didn't need this decade old fight with herself now crawling back up too.

Looking down at her timidly, Lisbon wondered if Marcus was pondering what else to say, he went with 'goodbye', turned around and left the bullpen.

She was rather cutting their time spend together lately. Before New York, they'd been called to Colorado and she had only been home for two days, which had consisted of getting the necessary paper work done. When Marcus had asked her out on her first day back, she told him she needed some alone time after hanging around with Jane and the team for a whole week. Now she was rebuffing him again; lunch wouldn't have been so bad, or time consuming. This seemed all to be shaping up to her trying to pull away before it even started. She was a disaster at relationships, she knew. Greg had been her last and first real one, and she had been twenty back then. Sometimes she felt as if there were two people inside of her, constantly battling each other. One wanted family and children, and the other was scared of any kind of commitment.

Marcus was perfect. In every way. And he could very well be her last chance to create something fundamental. Hadn't she just yesterday contemplated how great Marcus was. Many of the female employees would throw themselves at him, quite literally; she'd witnessed it two weeks ago when Kelly from accounting had "slipped" and landed right into his helpful arms. Lisbon had been amused by the scene, wondering what Jane would have said and done.

_Ahrgh_...there it was again. What was wrong with her. Couldn't she just once think about Marcus without Jane barging in like her mind belonged to him. This seemed to be her problem anyway, every man she met had to go through a mental comparison with Jane. Which, in and of itself, was absurd. For one, Jane had never been her boyfriend and two, he wasn't exactly the most flawless person on God's earth. Really, she thought, on a checklist list Marcus would pass with flying colors, Jane...meh. _Terrific, now I'm even thinking like him, damn him, damn New York, and damn storage. _She prayed she would never again be stuck with him in a storage or closet or whatever.

Back in Washington she had hoped that figuring out her feelings for Jane were merely of the friendship kind would finally allow her to move on in her personal relationships as well. But now, Lisbon had the uneasy feeling her heart was, metaphorically speaking, scoffing at her brain.

xxxxxxxxxx

Meanwhile Jane and Fischer had finished their interview with Jason Reilly's girlfriend, who had nothing good to say about her boyfriend's '_surrogate father,' _as she'd put it. Apparently Townsend had warned her to back off of Jason or she'd regret it. Jane was convinced though that Caroline was innocent. She'd also told them that Townsend and Reilly had met when Jonathan had been looking for his apartment five years ago, when he moved from Houston to Austin. They had become friends over their mutual love of ships.

Outside of the building Fischer caught up with Jane. "That's it? What if she had something to do with the murder, she had motive to kill Townsend...a-and she was nervous."

"Nah, like I said she's a tough cookie, and she had no reason to kill Jason, she loved him. And _if _she _were _to kill someone, she'd be more the do-it-yourself type."

"How reassuring," Fischer snorted, then sighed. "Let's get back to the office, maybe the other's have found something more about Townsend and Reilly."

"Mmh...did you know that Houston is the sixth largest harbor in the World? And ranks first in the United States in international waterborne tonnage handled and second in total cargo tonnage handled?"

"Uh, no, why? You think Townsend's job has something to do with his death?"

"Huh? Um, could be. But no, I was just wondering if you knew."

Fischer stopped in her tracks, glaring at him for what she felt was the hundredth time today. Honestly she had no idea how Lisbon wasn't a member of the psych ward yet. Kim was sure it would take only a few months and she'd happily commit herself. At the moment her greatest fear though was that her eyes would get stuck upwards if she rolled them one time too often.

Shaking her head in consternation Fischer hopped in on the drivers side. But before starting the engine she remembered to ask him something that was on her mind. "Is everything all right with Lisbon?"

Jane frowned at her. "Why would you be asking?"

"Well, you know, you and her are...close. And she seemed off today. I just thought, uh...forget it."

"No, no. It's all right. She's just having a bad day. She'll be fine. Don't fret, I'm sure she's busying like a bee with the interview reports."

"I wasn't asking because I think she might not be up for the job. I'm just...worried. She's one of my agents, I should know if something's wrong," Fischer answered irritated, turning the key in the ignition.

"Aww, Kim has made a friend," Jane smiled at her, before adding, "Probably better than talking to a shrink, eh?"

Jane didn't wait for a response, snuggling into his seat he closed his eyes. He had some thinking to do after all.

xxxxxxxxxx

As soon as Fischer and Jane arrived back at the Austin office, Abbott called the team in for a debriefing about the current situation. Fischer and Cho sat opposite of Jane and Lisbon, Abbott took his place at the bottom end of the conference table, putting his glasses on.

Fischer started with telling them what they've learned at Hawthorne's, while Cho informed the team that Mr. Townsend was super rich and owner of a freight ship company called "JT Maritime" in Houston, which also ships cargo for the US Government. Jason Reilly was a realtor and both men had the cleanest of rap sheets. Together the team went through the witness reports again, coming up empty here as well.

"We also couldn't find any suspicious activity on their bank accounts, nor the company's. They're two ordinary Americans—if you disregard Townsend being a wealthy company owner," Cho finished in his usual monotone voice.

"So, right now, except for the girlfriend Jane excluded, we have absolutely no suspect?" Fischer asked frustrated, throwing the papers in her hands down on the table.

Cho turned a page in his file. "Well, there is a man going by the name of Kieran Tierney. I talked to Townsend's chief executive, Steven Cornish, who is pretty much the boss now since Townsend decided to retire. And Cornish told us that Tierney had paid their company a few visits recently. After the first one, which Townsend had attended, he was, according to Cornish, _on edge_. Immediately afterwards Townsend gave Cornish full rein about the business. Mr. Cornish said he was stunned at this uncommon behavior of his boss, but didn't inquire further."

"And who is this Tierney guy?" Lisbon asked.

"This is where it becomes interesting. A man with that name doesn't exist. Well there's one registered in Maine, but he's eighty-seven, I doubt that's our guy. Cornish said Tierney's young, not older than thirty-three, has short blond hair and a scar on his right cheek. And the guy spoke with an accent, but Cornish couldn't label it."

"No security footage?" Fischer frowned.

"There is, but Tierney, or whatever his real name is, avoided looking at them. Me and Agent Wylie went through the footage and it seemed to me like he knew exactly where the camera's were hidden. All you see is the back of his head and part of the side of his face where the scar is, but it's not enough to find a possible match in the Facial Recognition System."

Jane stared at the tabletop, elbows on the armchair and hands folded, tapping his index fingers against his lower lip in thought.

"Could be a conspiracy," he mused, which earned him incredulous looks from everyone at the table. "What? Townsend and Reilly were killed by an assassin, who usually hires them? Exactly, rich people or governments. And his company conveys 'good' for the United States; let me guess Cho, when you asked Cornish, he told you he couldn't possibly tell you what they ship for the US." Cho didn't even bother to shake his head. "And then we have the mysterious non-existent Tierney, materializing out of nowhere, creeping Townsend out and vanishing just as he has appeared. Come on," Jane said and rubbed his hands gleefully. "When have I ever been wrong?"

Abbott gave him a lopsided grin. "Before we indulge in Jane's spygame, any citizens that may hold a grudge against both or one of them?"

"There aren't any, except for the usual, but those people don't have the means to hire a hitman with the skills of our guy," Fischer said.

"Mmh, and we are _certain _our killer was a professional?"

"Yes, I talked to the ME and he said the killshots were so accurate, he's never seen anything like this before. Not to forget our killer stopped Reilly before he even had the chance to attack him, though between the door and where Reilly's body lay wasn't more than three foot gap. He had no qualms about killing them in Townsend's apartment, though all of the neighbours were at home. That takes nerves, this guy is experienced," Cho replied.

"Ok, so we have an assassin on the run, who by now probably is out and about, and the person behind remains a mystery as long as we don't find him. Brilliant."

Jane raised his hand in apparent need of attention. "Yes, Jane?" Abbott addressed him exaggerated.

"Can we have a break now? I'm hungry," Jane whined. He still hadn't eaten lunch, and he was sure his stomach was on a collision course with Fischer, who just wouldn't let him grab a bite on the job.

Lisbon couldn't help but palm her face, while Fischer rolled her eyes, again. Abbott and Cho smirked at him though.

"Since that was all for now, yes, you're dismissed. We meet here again tomorrow for the next briefing, if nothing should come up in the meantime, I hope we'll have better news then."

xxxxxxxxxx

Returning to the bullpen Lisbon sat down, seconds later joined by Fischer, as Jane strolled back to his couch.

"Okay," Fischer started. "We should just go through the witness reports _again_. Someone must have..." She was interrupted by Nicole, the receptionist, who carried a large bouquet in her arms.

"Oh Agent Lisbon, so glad I found you. A courier just delivered these beautiful flowers for you. I was so free to put them in a vase, hope you don't mind. Shall I put them here?" Nicole asked with a bright smile and gestured to the right side of Lisbon's desk.

Lisbon and Fischer stared at her nonplussed, while Jane was already on his way over for closer inspection.

"Uh, sure. Thanks, Nicole," Lisbon managed to say after a few seconds. Dutifully Nicole put the vase down, nodded appreciatively and left them alone again.

"Wow, these are some nice flowers," Fischer remarked, but there was a small bite of envy in her tone.

Lisbon eyed the bouquet consisting of some white thick stemmed flowers and others with a yellow-ish core, some small yellow one's, she'd never seen before, and another single white flower, which also happened to be the only one she knew to put a name to: a daisy.

Touching the yellow one's with her fingertips, she saw Jane coming to a stop next to her desk, but it was Fischer who spoke again. "Are they from Agent Pike?" She asked, chewing on her lower lip and raised an expectant eyebrow at her, ignoring Jane's displeased huff.

Lisbon shrugged, looking for a card attached to the flowers, but there was none. Then she caught Jane scowling at the bouquet. "When is Pike's birthday?" he asked unexpectedly.

"What?" Lisbon smirked. "Why do you wanna know that?"

"Because I just had an idea for the perfect gift."

"Oh, and what would that be?" Fischer crossed her arms.

"A book. To be precise: 'The Language Of Flowers', cause quite obviously he is in need of one," he answered with a smug grin on his face. Clearly he was amused at Marcus' seeming blunder.

Lisbon just rolled her eyes and leaned closer to the vase. "Oh hush, it's thoughtful. And these _are _some nice flowers."

"Huh, you surprise me Lisbon, didn't have you pegged for a flower girl," Jane said, tucking his hands away in his pockets. Lisbon shrugged in uncertainty, pursing her lips.

"Well, I didn't receive a lot of flowers in my life, so how would you have?" Lisbon glanced at him and Jane halted. He had the sudden urge to buy every single flower in the whole wide world and let them rain down on Lisbon. He mentally slapped himself for not detecting this in all of the years they'd spent together.

Unbeknownst to them, Fischer's eyes swapped back and forth between Jane and Lisbon; there it was again this weird aura surrounding them. Clearing her throat loudly, Fischer broke the spell the two were under. "Uh, well, what is so wrong about the flowers he's chosen now, huh?" she asked, actual curiosity shining through.

Jane looked first at Fischer and then pointed at the flowers in front of him. "This one here for a start is called 'Tuberose' and means: _'Dangerous pleasure'_."

Fischer barked with laughter. "And what's so bad about that? Sounds like a good message coming from a man I'm dating," she smirked.

Jane wasn't deterred and just continued. "This one over here," he pointed at the other white flower with the yellow core. "Is called: 'Mock orange' and stands for '_deceit_', now, this one here," he said, pointing at the yellow small flowers in midst of the big white ones, "Is the 'Tussilage' or also known as 'Coltsfoot' and means," Jane paused for dramatic effect, while Lisbon and Fischer stared back at him with blank expressions on their faces.

"Means...," Lisbon prompted, her fingertips still caressing some of the petals.

"'_Justice shall be done to you_'," he told them, affecting a low and dangerous voice.

Had Jane not been so focused on the flowers in front of him, he would have seen Lisbon's hand, that had been touching the petals, fall back down on her desk—the corners of her mouth turning downwards.

"Well, the daisy should be discernible to all of you, also the only flower with a positive symbolism in this bouquet, standing for '_innocence_'," Jane finished, a self-satisfied grin gracing his face.

Fischer furrowed her brows, looking back from Jane to the bouquet. "Ok, so maybe all in all not the best hidden meanings, but who picks flowers for their meanings anyway. He probably just went for some pretty one's," Fischer suggested.

"Then he should stick with the classic roses; surely he knows their meaning," he answered with a hint of sarcasm.

That had Lisbon focus her eyes momentarily back on him. "But wouldn't that be just too _sophomoric_," she let the word hang in the air, reminding him of a long ago conversation.

Fischer had the feeling she was missing something again and chose to retreat. "Uh, well, whatever. Nice flowers Lisbon. Agent Pike seems really serious...um, why don't you go through the reports again for now and I'll do the same -in my office." Realizing none of the two were paying attention she walked backwards, escaping the weird tension that had settled.

It took Jane exactly twenty seconds to find his tongue again. "True, my dear. But," he laughed crookedly, "doesn't change the fact that this really is a rather _unfortunate _choice. Of all the flowers he could've picked he selected these," he gestured at the bouquet. Shaking his head in mock consternation, Jane went back to his couch and lay down.

Watching him close his eyes, Lisbon let her head fall in her hands, rubbing her temples. She could feel the damn migraine coming back.

"Lisbon? Is everything really all right? You know, you've been acting..." Lisbon didn't let him finish and stood up. "Yes Jane, I'm fine, just like I was fine this morning. I...just remembered I wanted to ask Fischer something. Excuse me," Lisbon said, picking up some random papers from her desk and left.

Jane gaped after her with a scowl on his face. His view settled back on the flowers and he pondered if Lisbon would notice if they would just vanish—into a trash bin for example. Or, when Kim found them so lovely, why didn't she just take them?! _'Sounds to me like a good message from a man I'm dating', _what did she know anyway. Oh, he hadn't forgotten it was her who all but pressured Lisbon into dating _Marcus_. Constantly telling Lisbon what a great catch _Marcus _was. When he'd asked Kim why she wasn't dating Superman then, she had looked like a deer in the headlights and murmured something akin to _'not my type'._ An amusing picture of Kim bending down to kiss Marcus went through his mind. Okay, _Marcus _wasn't _that _short, but still. Naturally he was just the perfect height for Lisbon. Meh.

He knew he had to make up his mind. No matter how hard he tried to deny it, he knew his feelings went way deeper than friendship—only just confirmed by the urge to tear apart each and every single flower, when Nicole had swaggered in with them. Lisbon had given him an opening in New York, but just as always he'd pussed out.

Put out with himself Jane rolled over, facing the backrest. Once Lisbon came back he would try to find out what'd been bothering her since this morning. This was one awful day and he could at least try to make the end of hers better than his.

Outside the bullpen, leaning against a wall, Lisbon tried to slow down her accelerated breathing. Well, with Jane telling her the meaning of the flowers, there was no need for a card to know _who _had sent them. Of course that begged the question how he expected her to find out; if it weren't for Jane, she'd have assumed Marcus had purchased them.

_Maybe that's it_, she thought, _once I'd find out he wasn't the one who ordered them, I would have looked up their meaning, knowing then that it could only be him. _Or he knew about Jane's impressive mind, but the implication's of what that meant she didn't want to contemplate.

This day was decidedly not getting any better, good thing it was almost over. But she'd have to avoid Jane for the remaining hours. She knew he wanted to talk about what troubled her, had seen it in his eyes, the concern. As good as he was at masking his own feelings, his eyes at times gave him away, usually when he thought no one was watching.

As frightening as the flowers were, their timing was impeccable. Lisbon had felt more and more tempted over the course of the morning, sitting in front of her computer, to just confess everything to Jane. _How could I be so foolish to even think about telling him, _she reprimanded herself and tried to come up with ways to avoid the consultant for the next hours.

xxxxxxxxxx

Just as predicted Jane had tried to corner her when she'd returned, but luckily she'd managed to avoid him—either by talking to other agents, one of them Marcus, who seemed to have gotten past his disappointment with her, and had gained her a whole of forty minutes of Jane not even trying to make conversation.

After that she'd hidden in a meeting about the FBI issued dental insurance she really didn't necessarily need to join. When she left to go home she had seen him looking at her with a worried, but also sad expression. But it couldn't be helped, she didn't want to talk about her "problem" right now, neither would she know how to start talking about it without sounding like one of those conspiracy theorists she couldn't stand. Well, at least she knew now that her teeth would look just splendid once she was six feet under. That was something, wasn't it? On the other hand, she might end up in an urn which would make the whole dental plan void.

Falling back down on her couch, Lisbon closed her eyes. The only sound filling her ears was the ticking of the clock—the sardonic double meaning wasn't lost on her. Concentrating on the tick-tock-tick-tock reminded Lisbon of Jane's gentle voice when he hypnotized someone. Smiling meekly, she felt herself slowly dropping off, until there was no sound anymore. The silence that emerged was soothing and terrifying at once.

_She was standing at the top of a hill, her raven hair floating in the soft wind that felt like a lovers caress on her skin, and made her white silk dress breeze lightly. The sun hung high above her in the clear blue sky, warming her skin._

_Looking around she found herself standing on the greenest meadow she'd ever seen, seeded with the most beautiful daisies. Her view fell upon an apple tree a few feet away. A single, shiny, red apple hung on one of its branches. Slowly she walked over and reached out. Though she was standing right in front of it she couldn't grasp the fruit. Getting up on her tiptoes she tried again, biting her lower lip in exertion. Finally her fingers wrapped around the fruit and she softly stepped down on her heels, momentarily mesmerized by the sunlight reflected on the apples skin._

_Gently stroking the apple with her fingertip she put the fruit in both hands and brought it up to her lips. With one bite she tore the skin and flesh apart, the juice slowly ran down the corners of her mouth, dropping in rivulets down her chin. _

_Opening her eyes, she caught the sight of a little boy in the distance. But she couldn't make out his face, no matter how much she squinted her eyes. _

_Then she felt a soft pressure on her hand that held the apple, and when she looked down at it, the soft smile gracing her face fell and contorted into a terrified expression, her eyes widened in horror. _

_The once shiny red apple had turned into an ugly shade of yellow-green and worms were drilling their way out of it skin. As if in a time lapse, the daisies and the once green grass around her were withering to dust, until she was left standing on grubby soil. Her white dress splattered with red stains from the bloody raindrops that came down from the now darkening sky. Looking up, the boy was gone. _

_Her hands descended and the fruit fell to the ground with a whoomph._

With a start Lisbon woke up, breathing heavily, sweat dripping down her temples. Her hands shot up, her eyes assessing in relief that there were no worms, or an apple to begin with.

Blinking she looked around the room, nothing amiss. The light of the table lamp didn't illuminate much, but Lisbon could make out the display of the digital clock next to it.

8.57pm. She had only slept for forty minutes.

Pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes she got up from the couch. Her eyes too needed sleep, they were burning like hell. Maybe she could get the dog she'd always wanted, but never gotten because of the ridiculous hours she was working. But then, a dog was no unflappable alarm system either.

Thinking about dinner she discarded the idea, when the memory of the apple in her dream came back. So instead she walked straight to her bedroom. She had had some Granola bars from the vending machine and Cho had given her half of his Burrito claiming to be sated, though she knew from over a decade working with the dark haired man that that had been a lie. The confirmation had come an hour later in the form of Cho's eyes practically being glued on Agent Franco's Pizza which had anchovie's on it—Cho despised anchovie's.

Entering the bedroom her sight immediately fell on the slightly open window across from her. For a minute Lisbon couldn't move and she tried to remember if she had left it open this morning, or even the night before. But no matter how long she raked her brain it wasn't very helpful, it felt like there was an invisible barrier stopping her brain from thinking beyond what had happened five minutes ago.

That's when the wind made the curtains blow.

Within a split second she was at the window, shutting it with a crash. Another second later she closed the pale green curtains as well, before repeating the action at the window on the right.

She startled when the bedroom phone rang, but all she could do was look at it, her hands still clutching the curtains. The caller could just leave a message on the answering machine. If it was work they would try her cellphone anyway.

When the answering machine took the call and she recognized the voice, Lisbon felt relief washing over her.

"Teresa. This is Elsa, just wanted to apologize, I think I left one of the windows in the bedroom open when I was finished with cleaning. Um, hope you're fine. We still good for lunch on Saturday? Call me if your plans have changed. Have a good night, bye."

Lisbon realized she was still standing rooted to the spot. Shaking herself out of the stupor, she made to answer Elsa's call when the phone started ringing again. Having a good view of the display now she recognized the caller was unknown.

Reaching for the cordless phone her eyes were glued to the display. Still holding it in her hands she thought about picking up, her thumb already hovered over the green button, but then she heard the click of the answering machine, ready to do its job. This time however the caller didn't leave a message. Again there was just a rustling in the line, and after what felt like minutes the person hung up and Lisbon was once again surrounded by silence.

Making up her mind, she gave the phone one last glance before throwing it on the bed. A determined expression overtaking her face, she went to take figures, perfume bottles and other small things made of glass or china, from the shelf in her bedroom and placed some of them in front of the sills where the windows would open. Finished with that she left the bedroom and did the same in all other rooms of the basement.

Completing her task Lisbon pushed the dresser in the hall to block the front door, placing a vase on its edge, so it would shatter in case the door would be opened and with that the dresser pushed back.

Examining her work Lisbon nodded once in satisfaction and took a chair from the dining room, seating herself in the back of the hall, facing the front door.

Although she was certain nothing would happen—not tonight—she wouldn't be getting any sleep now anyway. And how did they say: '_An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure'_. She needed to be on alert. These calls were a tool to scare her, to show her she couldn't hide, wouldn't escape, no matter where she would go.

Taking her Glock in her hands Lisbon started brushing her thumb back and forth over the safety. Taking a deep breath, she leaned back on the chair and rested her arm holding the gun on the arm rest, her eyes never leaving the door.

No matter what happened, one thing was clear as rain, she wouldn't let him win, even if it was the last thing she did. She would fight, wherever and whenever the day of reckoning would finally come.

xxxxx

"_I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." _

―_Nelson Mandela_

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**A/N:** Phew, poor Lisbon, but at least she's getting over her first sense of shock, Lisbon is a fighter after all. Let me know what you think. Reviews, I find, really do brighten my day :)

Oh yeah, I know everyone is probably itching to find out what happened in the Big Apple...well, all I can say is, look out for the next chapter ;)


	3. Between Ourselves

**A/N: **Thanks to the fantastic wimmer511 for betaing. You're a true gem. :)

Also, huge thanks to everyone who took the time to review. And to the Readers who followed and/or faved.

And without further ado, here's Chapter three, including the "New York Scene" ;)

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***Chapter 3*: Between Ourselves**

xxxxx

"_Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart." _

― _Haruki Murakam_

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The next morning Lisbon was even more wasted than the day before, as was to be expected when one spent the night sitting on an uncomfortable chair trying to stay on alert. Her tired brain though had thought she needed at least some sleep and had knocked her out in the whee morning hours, which resulted in Lisbon now sitting in her car being stuck in morning traffic.

She was already thirty minutes late; not once in her life had she ever been late before. Her bedlam sleeping pattern also meant she'd had to skip coffee this morning. Oh yes, she was in an excellent mood. Lisbon felt already sorry for anyone who even looked at her the wrong way today.

Regarding the long line of cars, honking pointlessly in aggravation, in front of her, Lisbon pondered over the events of last night. Up to the point she had apparently fallen asleep, she'd tried to come up with a plan, or at least _something, _instead of just barricading herself in her own home waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.

So it was then that she had gotten up at around two in the morning and rummaged through the still unpacked boxes, in hope it wouldn't take too long to find what she was looking for. Four boxes, and lots of chaos later, she had finally found the files she'd been searching for. Fifteen years, and she still took them wherever she went.

Taking the manila folders with her, she sat down cross-legged on her couch and laid the pile next to her. Opening the first of them, she found herself eyeing Samuel Bosco's picture and she had to wipe an errant tear away—wishing Sam was there. Smiling at it wistfully for a moment, she continued to skim the first page consisting of a profile, and then the next pages covered with information. On page three she found a phone number she'd been looking for and wrote it down on a note pad.

Closing Bosco's file she proceeded with to next one. Here she found the picture of a young woman with long, straight blonde hair and brown eyes attached to the first side. Skimming these pages too, she found a second number and scribbled it on the note as well. Two more files were left; the last one, she knew, was her own. Knowing it inside out, she pushed it away.

With that she regarded the remaining one. In spite of knowing there was nothing to find in there, her fingers itched to open it. Flinging it open, in the spur of the moment, she found an attractive man in his mid thirties, at the time the picture was taken, staring back at her. He had dark hair_, _military-cut_, _and piercing blue eyes; the crinkles on his face deep, in spite of his youth. Lisbon extracted the picture from the file and took in every line. On the whole, she would have to say she was void of any feeling when looking at the handsome face, but she couldn't deny that there was something else. The emotion that made her open the file was pushing its way to the front. Allowing for it to be present at all made her want to vomit and Lisbon unconsciously splayed her hand on her stomach.

Crumpling the image in her fist, she felt another single tear slide down her cheek. The first thing her eyes fell upon, when opening them, was the fireplace; and a split-second decision was made.

Lisbon arose from her sitting position to enkindle the chimney. When the fire was crackling, she took the pile of files and threw them into the flames; watching as the fire consumed them one by one. Lisbon took the note she'd written the numbers on and shoved it into her pocket, making her way to her bedroom. In there she opened the small safe behind the painting abover her bed, and fingered the round metallic object enveloped in a small sachet. Returning to the fireplace she threw the sachet into the fire as well; knowing it wouldn't harm the metal inside. But for Lisbon it was something of a symbolic act, and she felt immediately unshackled, as if someone had cut a heavy chain tied to her neck.

Then she resumed her place in the hall, and after an hour or so she had fallen asleep. Thus, making her late. And now she was trapped in her damn car.

Fifteen minutes later she finally parked her SUV in her designated parking lot at the Austin office and stormed inside, passing Nicole who smiled and waved at her. She walked into the bullpen and got rid of her bag, then ran in direction of the conference room. On her way she grabbed the coffee Wylie was holding from his hands. Hollering her excuse, she took a long sip before walking calmly around the corner and stepped into the room_―_all eyes on her. Oh, how she loved attention.

"Agent Lisbon. I feel honored you decided to join us after all. Why don't you take a seat," Abbott greeted her in a honeyed-tone, and she could feel her face flushing.

"Sorry, traffic was murder."

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_ Liar_, Jane thought, as he perused Lisbon's appearance while she sat down next to him. Abbott was summarizing the clues and information they had gathered so far before Lisbon had joined them. Naturally he hadn't been listening; mind you, the content was still the same as yesterday. _Boring_.

Lisbon's behavior was anything but though. He chuckled inwardly at Lisbon who made a point of not looking at him and listened intently to whatever Cho was saying right now. Oh, she had avoided him after the flower incident the day before. She had prevented any attempt by him to try to talk to her, by first making doe eyes at Marcus, and then joining a dental insurance meeting. And now here she was, blaming the traffic. Sure, he acknowledged, the traffic at this time of day was a pain, but she wouldn't have ended up in traffic in the first place, had she left her house at her usual time. Since she hadn't, it left two options:

One, she had another rather disturbing night, and exhaustion had knocked her out, which made her miss the alarm clock―in which case he really needed to get to the bottom of the problem. Or two, she had a very long running date with _Marcus, _after his flamboyant flowery gift, to thank him. Things might have gotten out of hand and this morning the dwarf had wanted a repeat performance―in which case he wanted to throw up. Both options, Jane surmised, left a lot to be desired.

Gazing at her, Jane tried to find tells that would rule out option number two. Her rosy cheeks and slightly erratic breathing, however, had his mind momentarily wander off to more pleasant things. Unfortunately, even in his own fantasy the man Lisbon lazily smiled up at was _Marcus_. Now, that was anticlimactic.

For the most part, all of this could be explained by her embarrassment for coming to late, Jane mused, and he couldn't help but think Lisbon surely would come on time if _he _were to..., but that was a different matter altogether. A matter which sinceNew York became harder and harder..._ Oh geez_, _what the hell is wrong with me? Lisbon. Something's up with Lisbon. _

He was so lost in his thoughts, it took him a second longer to see Lisbon's eyes on his―and everyone else's. Ah, yup, apparently someone had asked a question. And given Abbott's annoyed look, that'd be him. Now what could he have...ah, of course.

"No," Jane said simply.

The team simultaneously raised their eyebrows in wonder. "No?" Abbott echoed quizzically.

Jane leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "No," he repeated.

"You weren't listening, you don't know what I asked," Abbott replied confidently; and a little too smug for Jane's liking.

"You wanted to know if I had anything to add," Jane said, grinning at Abbott who looked disconcerted before reining himself in. "It's what you pay me for after all," Jane explained. "Uh, that being said, we shouldn't forget that there's, of course, still the ring we found at Townsend's. Maybe the jewellery will give us a new hint, I have the feeling it might be more important than we first thought." Jane didn't see Lisbon's suddenly squared shoulders, being focused on the man on the other end of the table.

Equally oblivious to Lisbon's sudden change in posture, Cho said, "We should get the lab results tomorrow." Which had Jane's eyes widen. "Tomorrow? I thought this was the _F.B.I_.? What's taking them so long?" he asked, looking at Cho in disbelief.

Smirking, the Korean addressed Jane directly. "They seem to have trouble extracting and defining the fingerprints. _Someone _has tampered with the evidence," Cho replied smoothly, hands folded in front of him.

Jane grinned. "Touché Cho, touché."

"But, Agent Guster, our language expert could tell us what the engraving meant," Cho informed the team. "_Sinn Féin,_ is Irish Gaelic, and means something like: '_Ourselves' _or _'We ourselves'_. It's an Irish republican political party in both, the Republic of Ireland, as well as in Northern Ireland."

"So our Assassin is an Irish citizen?" Abbott inquired, pinching his nose in foreboding of what could become a political nightmare.

"Um, not necessarily," Lisbon piped up, picking her fingernails in nervousness. "I've dug a bit deeper, and found out that...uh, that the Irish Government alleges 'Sinn Féin' senior members to hold posts on the IRA Army Council," Lisbon submitted. Clearing her throat she went on. "Naturally 'Sinn Féin' denies those claims. However, it could be the sign for some kind of affiliation with the IRA, and not with Ireland or this political party itself."

"That doesn't exactly make me feel better." Abbott looked back at Cho. "Anything else?"

"Next to the engraving, right and left, was a symbol which looks like a rotated 'V'. Guster says it's called a 'Ken Rune'; the rune of the fierce warrior. There is a tale that the Celtic warriors would wear this sacred rune around their necks, in battle, to invoke the gods of war for assistance. Apparently our friend chose to wear the sign around his finger instead."

Abbott crossed his arms and looked back at Jane, who had been quietly listening to what Cho and Lisbon had announced, and was still trying to figure out why she had sounded almost reluctant to share her bit of news. "So, Jane, any brilliant idea you might want to share with us?"

"Mmh? Oh, easy. We find Tierney, we find the killer."

"Hm," Abbott responded, and signalled Jane to go on.

"Let's see, he used a false name, has vanished, the ring most likely belonged to him which points to a connection to Ireland. And I bet, the accent Cornish couldn't pinpoint was of the Irish variety. The puzzle pieces fit neatly...hm, Irish mob perhaps. Also, from what I've seen on the security footage, he has a military background. His stance, his movements are pretty telling, they're just like Cho's," Jane said, smirking at Cho who didn't move a muscle. "So I wouldn't close the IRA angle just yet." Next to him Lisbon swallowed.

"Well, then it's a good thing I didn't," Abbott informed his team, who all looked up at him in synch. "In fact, I already informed DHS this morning, they're sending a few of their agents down."

"May I ask why?" Fischer asked, finding her boss' decision a bit rash.

Abbott finally sat down in one of the chairs next to Jane, taking the remote that sat in front of him on the table in his hands. "You may indeed," he said and pressed play.

"We received a call, very early this morning, from the Dallas PD, telling us they were called to a shooting during the night. When they arrived they saw four men coming out of a house, all armed, three of them made it into the closely parked van. The last one," he pointed to the image on the TV of a man in a black overall, a automatic gun lying next to him on the sidewalk_―_he was for all intense and purposes dead, "turned around and fired back at the officers at the scene. They hit him in the abdomen and he toppled on his back. We had our IT's compare the security footage from JT Maritime's with the images we received from DPD. They're eighty-seven percent certain, this is our man."

Cho straightened. "Tierney?"

Abbott nodded. "And the ring you've found at Towsend's is most likely not his. DPD sent us close-ups from Tierney's body and he wore a ring with the same engraving. Which means Townsend and Reilly were most assuredly killed by the same team that striked last night in Dallas." Abbott pressed another button and a video feed from the parked police car played on screen, confirming everything Abbott had just recounted.

"Who did they take out?" Lisbon asked, transfixed on the moving frames, her heartbeat picking up speed.

"DPD found a man, Karl Blackstone, seventy-two; dead in his living room. He was shot several times, bullet holes all over the body."

"Blackstone? The security company," Fischer inquired.

Again Abbott nodded.

"How did the police manage to get there so fast?" Jane's curiosity was piqued.

"What do you mean?" Fischer raised an eyebrow.

"Well, look at the footage, the cars are already parked when these guys come out of the house. I presume they got called in because of the shooting," Jane paused, and added as an afterthought: "Did they take anything?"

"No, nothing was taken. They killed Blackstone, then left."

"Four men, with automatic guns, killing a man in his early seventies, and they choose to run the second the police cars arrive? I mean, were they on patrol one street further down?" Jane's tone held amusement.

"They were several blocks away actually. Took 'em seven minutes to arrive at the scene after the emergency call was made."

"Who called in?" Lisbon asked, her eyes still glued to the frozen frames in front of her, trying to discern the men's faces.

Abbott smirked. "That's the intriguing part. The call was made from inside Blackstone's house. Caller said he heard shots."

Jane cut Abbott off. "Ha, just like Townsend, interesting. Again, what did they do inside for seven minutes. Shooting Karl must have taken, what? A few seconds? After getting in. They didn't steal anything, so they could've just left; and that took them seven minutes?"

"Maybe they were looking for something?" Cho chipped in, but Abbott shook his head. "No, every room was neat and tidy."

Jane tapped his lips in thought. "They made the call themselves. They waited for the police to arrive."

"Why would they do that?" Lisbon frowned, but having a vague premonition of what Jane would suggest.

"They wanted attention, obviously. You said the officers shot him in the abdomen, was this the cause of death?" Jane asked Abbott.

"No, and here comes the second intriguing part of last night's crime. Please watch the screen." The Video Abbott had stopped continued. "The officers at the scene said, when Tierney fell backwards, one of the men in the van who wanted to close the door, took his gun and shot Tierney. As they saw later, at closer inspection, the shot went straight to his temple. Killshot."

"They left him behind?"

"I know what you're thinking, Fischer. They must be pretty certain we can't identify him. However, we now have two cases to work that are clearly linked, Townsend's and Blackstone's. Someone hired these hitman to take them out. Wylie already found a connection between these two men."

Cho expression was something close to a frown. "Which is?"

"Blackstone and Townsend were business partners once upon a time. Blackstone was the head of the private security firm 'Blackstone Inc.' in Houston, who often collaborated with 'JT Maritime's'. When Blackstone retired and his son overtook the company they're allegiance stopped." Abbott sighed. "Whoever had a problem with these guys must be holding this grudge for a long time. They collaborated, especially in the nineties, up until to early two-thousand and three. So why are they going after them now? It can't be anything recent."

"Hm. The client possibly wasn't in any position to act, _or _he didn't know about whatever injustice he feels they've brought upon him until now," Jane suggested. He had the feeling he was missing something. "Was Wylie able to identify any of them?"

"No, the footage is too bad and as you can see, the only glimpses of them you get are the sides of their faces. They didn't even bother wearing masks." Abbott shook his head. "All right then, I want you to check the reports again and the other information you've found. Maybe we've overlooked something. Let's hope the lab results of the ring will give us a fingerprint, maybe we'll find a name matching them." Abbott took of his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "You're dismissed."

The moment Abbott was out of the door, Jane turned to his colleagues who were packing up their documents. "Anyone want anything from the break room? I'll go and make some tea." He glanced at Lisbon.

"A coffee would be nice," she said and smiled curtly, and Jane watched her leave, rubbing her temple with her right hand.

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Sagging down in her seat at her desk, Lisbon bowed her head down to her hands. She didn't like this. Not one bit. She knew she'd almost screwed up when she submitted what she had found out yesterday_―_not that she had needed to do a lot of research. Good thing Jane had been distracted with Abbott and the new information, although she was sure he'd heard the tension in her voice, as small as it might have been.

Until Abbott related the new case to them, she had tried to convince herself that this case was the usual day in, day out job. The ring, a mere coincidence. But with a second murder and the footage of the crime scene there was no denying anymore.

Lisbon was pretty certain Reilly had been collateral damage. But why Townsend and Blackstone? Just to get her attention? Because Jane had been right, it was about attention, _her _attention. She needed information. Information the FBI couldn't provide.

Patting her pants pocket, she felt the little note crumpled within it. "It's time," she mumbled to herself and jumped up from her chair.

In her haste she almost bowled over Jane who just arrived with her coffee. Without as much as a second glance she left him standing there and was out of the hopped in her car and left the Austin office behind, rummaging in her pocket for the note. With a look at her FBI issued phone and then at the numbers, she thought the better of it, looked around to see if the lane on the right was free, and changed direction.

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Jane stood dumbfounded, with Lisbon's coffee in hand, in front of her desk. _What in the name of all things Lisbon was that?_ Putting the coffe down he wondered how long Lisbon would be gone. Maybe she went to meet with _Marcus?_..._or not_, he amended, when he spied said man passing the bullpen, deep in conversation with a fellow agent.

Hands firmly put in his pockets Jane rocked back and forth on his heels. _Well, this is boring_. Whatever Lisbon was doing would have to wait to be found out until her return. Going through Lisbon's desk would be folly, Cho was concentrating hard on the paper in front of him, but ever so often glanced up in his direction. _Honestly, does no one trust me? _Mmh, maybe he could go and pester Woods from narcotics meanwhile, the man irked him.

Just as he was about to walk in direction of the narcotics division, he caught sight of Abbott who had several pretty important looking men in his wake. Armed with suits and sunglasses, looking for all the world as if they'd stepped out of some clichéd spy-movie. _Ah, Homeland Security._ Well that went fast. Mmh, maybe the time to Lisbon's return wouldn't be so tedious after all.

Unfortunately Fischer chose that precise moment to step out of her hole, doing a double take when she saw him, then followed his gaze down the corridor, spotting Abbott and his following. At a rapid pace, she started off in his direction. For a second he contemplated running, but in the end his low, but still existent, sense for self-preservation won out and he stood rooted to the spot.

"Where do you think you're going?" she inquired briskly when she came to a stop, blocking his view of the hall.

Jane looked past her, then right and left. "Me?" he asked, pointing helpfully at himself, which evoked another eyeroll from Fischer.

"No, the Queen of England."

"Hm, I don't know. It's what...early morning in England? I suppose she is still sleeping in her _queen-sized _bed," Jane chuckled at his own joke. Planning on walking past Fischer, but she stopped him by blocking the way with her arm on the doorframe.

"Funny. Seriously," she replied, mouth in a straight line.

"Uh, I wanted to help Abbott out a bit, looks like he could use my help. I once dealt with an agent from DHS and let me tell you, he wasn't quite..." Jane circled his index finger next to his temple and blew out a whiff of air through the side of his lips, widening his eyes at the same time, to make her understand the man had been totally nuts.

"That," she pointed in the direction in which Abbott and DHS agents had vanished, "is none of your business, as long as Abbott says so."

"Meh. But pray tell, the third guy wasn't Homeland, wasn't he? He walked differently...Pentagon? State Department?" Jane delighted when Fischer's eyes went big as saucers. "Ah ha, State Department," he said slowly. "So Abbott really brings out the big guns, huh?"

Fischer crossed her arms again. "We can't be careful enough. And didn't you imply we might be dealing with Irish Terrorists, or at least mob?"

Jane eyed her and grinned when he realized what was going on. "Abbott didn't tell you what the State Department is doing here, did he? Abbott also didn't mention anything about the SD this morning, so why do they show up?" Jane murmured the last part more to himself.

Fischer sighed in frustration, partly because of Jane, and partly because he was right. She had no idea why an agent of the State Department was here. "Listen, I know this screams for your attention. But maybe, just maybe, you could actually do something productive. You won't be able to listen in on the conversation anyway. They are in a secured room." Fischer realized she had broached his interest even more when he pursed his lips and his eyes drifted to his left side, apparently contemplating to scheme his way inside the room.

Time for a diversion technique. "Uh, where's Lisbon?" she asked trying to sound noncommittally.

"Huh?" he mumbled. Fischer had to repress a smirk. _That always worked_, she thought, she might not have figured him out yet, but she had learned the most important trick of them all. He continued, "Don't know. She went out some time ago." Jane glanced back down the corridor. Something was definitely afoot. But his chances of getting inside now were equal to zero, so he might as well play along.

"Ok. Well, how about you go back to your couch and wait for her, doing whatever it is you normally do."

"Normally I would talk to Lisbon," he told her as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Fischer bit her tongue. "Honestly, I don't care what you...no, wait. I do care. Just do something without irritating anyone for a while. Help Cho and Wylie."

Jane sensed she wasn't going to leave until he went back to the bullpen. He huffed in exaggeration. "I'm going, I'm going, Slavedriver" he said, turning around. "See, I'm going in _this _direction," Jane told her, pointing back at the bullpen.

Fischer rolled her eyes. "I hope Lisbon comes back fast," she mumbled, and a few feet in front of her Jane had to grin. Well, there was one thing they agreed on.

Strolling leisurely back to his couch, Jane sat down. After a second, though, he started bouncing on it, which made Cho, who was in the middle of seeing through Blackstone's biography, close his eyes in rising indignation.

"Seriously man. Stop that."

"Oh, come on Cho. It's _boooring_, there's nothing to do," Jane whined.

Cho leaned back in his chair. "You could help us go through all these files." He grabbed some of the folders that had found their way on his desk and held them up for Jane to see.

"Files, Shmiles." Jane sighed heavily. "But tell me, Cho my friend, have you found anything of interest?"

"Depends. Blackstone has access to more than a hundred assassins themselves by the looks of it, but Tierney wasn't one of them. I hoped it was something down the line of: Ex-employee wants revenge."

Tapping his lips Jane sighed. "Nah. No reason to kill Townsend or Reilly. But, you might be on to something with it being more personal. This isn't Terrorism. What would they achieve by killing these men? Nothing. Terrorists want to reach a broader audience. But still, this doesn't look like the usual hitman case either, too many players in the game," Jane paused. "No Cho, the pieces don't really fit. I sense something supersecret is going on here," he told him and eyed the corridor again_―_or what he could view of it. "Something of _national, _perhaps even _international _interest."

Cho raised his brows. "Uh huh. Listen 007. As long as Moneypenny hasn't returned, sit still, or you and your couch will get to know each other more intimately than you ever thought possible."

"Killjoy," Jane grumbled, but lay down on his couch and closed his eyes. He would take a nap.

xxxxxxxxxx

Lisbon, meanwhile, stood in an underground carpark, positioned between the trunk of her SUV and a cold concrete wall; a brand new disposable phone in her hand.

When she heard steps echoing behind her, Lisbon ducked more into the shadows, her eyes squinting to see who passed by. She caught sight of a middle-aged couple that came to halt in front of the cars and exchanged an embrace, the man's voice resounding undefinable from the walls; apparently saying something tender to his love. Lisbon watched them smile at each other before they leaned in and shared a kiss. Though Lisbon's eyes were still fixed on them, she was submerged into her own memory.

_**Five days earlier...in a cold storage somewhere in New York City**_

_ "I swear to God, Jane, one day...," Lisbon fumed. Her frustration had reached boiling point two hours ago already when Jane had insisted they should check out a hunch. Of course, she should have known that checking things out with Jane characteristically meant they'd be getting into some kind of trouble. And really, she had been prepared for lots, getting stuck in an old cold storage wasn't one of them. Her gun wasn't of much use here, unless to shoot Jane, which at the moment seemed like a genuinely good idea._

_ And if that wasn't enough, even though abandoned since a while, the owner of the warehouse complex, Mr. Stephens― whom Jane suspected of being the killer― had paid the rent upfront for six more months, so the freezing system still worked flawlessly. And since the reception of their phones didn't work, a speedy rescue from their colleagues was more of a long shot right now._

_ On top of it all, though it was November, she hadn't put on a coat. Her warm winter coat from Cannon River was hanging on a rack, safely at home in Austin. Instead she was only wearing her thin blazer. The chances of freezing to death, therefore, were enormous. Jane seemed to have no issue with their current situation, he was leaning against a bench in the back, grinning. _The Bastard_._

_ "Now Lisbon, don't fret. We'll be out of here sooner than you can say: 'Jane, I swear I'm gonna shoot you.′"_

_ "Jane, I swear I'm gonna shoot you," Lisbond deadpanned, looking mockingly at the heavy door that stayed stubbornly closed. Then she huffed. "Huh, seems I've finally proven you really _are _no psychic." _

_ "Meh, they will notice if I'm gone too long," he shrugged her fears off. "Abbott gets nervous if I'm unsupervised for five minutes. If he can't reach either of us, he'll send the cavalry. And they know we went here," he said, shoving his hands deeper down in his coat pockets. _

Damn_, Lisbon thought, if it was possible the man looked even better in a coat. _How? _His beach-bum look wasn't her favorite, by far. Really, the shirts had to go, although she genuinely liked the beard, or rather stubble. But, because of the cool November temperatures, he'd decided to buy an overcoat, after they'd left their temporary office. The look on the salesclerk's face had been priceless. He'd probably never before seen a man who looked as if he had stepped out of a plane from Hawaii and walked right into this upscale shop. Lisbon smirked, she had felt as if she'd fallen straight into the male version of 'Pretty Woman'._

_ Remembering that she was annoyed with him, Lisbon __planted the scowl back on her face. __"I hope you're right and Abbott's sensed you've gone missing. Otherwise we've __got __a serious problem, cause we're not clothed for facing the cold of the north-pole," Lisbon answered, her lips already trembling lightly. To get her body warm she started to hop up and down._

_ "Just relax, Lisbon, the cold is only in your mind. Imagine you're sitting on a beach, the sun shining down on you and you're sipping a tasty cocktail," Jane proposed to her with the soothing, gentle tone he use__d __to hypnotize people. _

_ Of course, his damn biofeedback made him resistant against the cool air. "Well, Jane, unlike _you, _I haven't spent two years in Paradise. So I'm afraid I lack the memory of how that feels, in order to recall it now." Oops, that had come out a tad more resentful than she'd intended. _

_ The grin on Jane' face fell and turned gloomy. "I know," he whispered, sounding..._mournful?_ "And you haven't the faintest idea how much I've wished you'd been there," he admitted. _

_ He looked down then and if Lisbon hadn't known better she'd say he was blushing. Lisbon realized she had stopped jumping and now felt the cold slowly crawling up her suit pants. So she stood and shifted her weight from one leg to the other. Somehow, she had the odd feeling jumping would attract to much attention to her person, which was ironic given the fact her and Jane were the only people in here._

_ "Come here." Jane pulled her out of her revery. He stood now in front of the bench, unbuttoning his coat. _

_ "Um, what are you doing?"_

_ Jane grinned again, but didn't look up. "You're only wearing a blazer made to sit in an office. You're freezing, come here. Our body heat will help us to stay warm for longer, and this coat is wide enough."_

_ Hesitantly Lisbon went over to Jane who held the coat wide open, waiting for her to step up close so he could wrap it around them. A tiny voice reminded her that this probably wasn't the __smartest __thing to do, but he had a point...with the body heat and all. _

_So it was with that thought that Lisbon tucked her arms around Jane's waist. __Jane, though, must have thought this wouldn't do, because he pressed her small frame closer to his body and with that her cheek to his chest._

_ "I'm still mad at you, you know," Lisbon __mumbled__, her mouth partly covered by Jane's shirt._

_ Jane huffed in mock annoyance. "Well, how should I have known that there is no way to open this thing from the inside, huh?"_

_ "Isn't the reason we're in here in the first place, because you thought Stephens brought the girls here until he kills them?"_

_ "Yes," Jane said. "And I'm right by the way. Over there in the corner is blood."_

_ "So? It's a cold storage, could be blood from an animal."_

_ "Oh, please, Lisbon," he said, placing his chin back on top of her head. _This is starting to feel way too intimate_, Lisbon thought, while Jane continued, "Stephens brings them here, has the cold tire them out, so they don't fight him, but are also mostly unharmed. With Jennifer it must've gone wrong, which explains the frostbite on her toes and fingers. I'm betting you, it's her blood over there, he had to slam her head against the wall because unlike the others, she still __had enough energy __to fight him," Jane explained._

_ Lisbon had no idea what to say to that. The feel of his heartbeat and the intoxicating smell of...well_ him_, had her brain working delayed. _

_ "Why didn't you come __see me__?"__Jane all of as sudden asked her. His arms around her tightened, though, Lisbon assumed, he wasn't aware of doing it. Being too stunned to speak, Jane kept on filling the silence that had emerged. "I dropped hints in the letters, hoping you would decide to take a vacation for once. Even in my last letter I tried again...obviously I didn't know it'd be my last. But I have to admit I was starting to think about capitulating, or asking you straight out. I hadn't decided yet," he said, sounding dejected. _

_ She wondered what had brought all of this on. Jane wasn't one to become emotional just like that. Maybe his biofeedback wasn't working correctly._

_ Not lifting her head from his chest, Lisbon said. "What did you expect to happen then? I mean...you show me where you live and whatever you were doing down there, before...before I eventually would have to return to my __home and __routines again?" She hadn't realized she had pulled back a little and was now looking at him incredulously. "I already missed you as it was, visiting you would have only made it worse."_

_ She could swear there was a merry look in his eyes when she admitted that, but his usual mask was back just a moment later. _

_ "Mmh, you're probably right. It's just...if we missed each other, then why are we drifting apart now that we're back together?" he asked curiously, holding her gaze. Lisbon choked. _What is happening here?

_ Clearing her throat she answered, "We're not. We're working together, that's what you came back for..." _

_Jane __cut her off. "That's not what I came back for. I came back for you," he replied and the fierce look in his eyes and tone was making her shiver for all the wrong reasons. He came back for her friendship, she had to remind herself, he'd been lonely and she was familiar. _

_ "Right. To-to work with me," she stuttered, "and you've gotten your wish. I don't see us drifting apart." _

_ Jane's brows raised, his hands had drifted to her hips while they'd been talking and pressed into her firmly. The coat hung now open at his sides and Lisbon felt the shiver from the coolness at her back, but somehow she didn't move._

_ "We barely work together these days. I understand it's not just your choice, but mostly Fischer's. But even when we do, I feel like you're avoiding me...and since you're seeing Marcus...," he drifted off, not looking into her eyes anymore._

_ Lisbon scoffed. "What? Am I not allowed to make other friends now?"_

_ "Friends? He's barely just a _friend_," Jane snorted._

_ "So? I know you have this strange assumption I'm a nun, but I've got news for you buddy, there are _some _men who actually want to date me," she replied, a little disgruntled._

_ "__I don't think you're __nun, and never did. Trust me." That and the gaze he held her captive with, took Lisbon off guard. And for some seconds, __(or was it a minute?), __the two of them just stared into each others eyes._

_ Lisbon didn't know what made her do it, but suddenly she felt herself move slightly forward, __going __up on her tiptoes, and Jane's eyes widened in understanding of what she seemingly was about to do. For Lisbon __everything __happened in slow motion, until she was a fraction away from his face. And then..._

_Then, suddenly, he pushed her away from him and started pacing along the length of the bench, one hand brushing through his hair, while he kept avoiding her eyes._

_ Lisbon felt the mortification of what had just happened―__or what hadn't happened__―__it__was colder than the freezing temperature surrounding her. She desperately wanted to cry. But she wouldn't, not in front of him. She had been kidding herself all along. Compartmentalizing had always been her strong suit, and it had been easy to make herself believe the lie of her having just friendly feelings toward Jane when he was gone. Yet, here she was again, hoping for something that would never be, because he told her he'd missed her; his only friend, on a lonely island. How pathetic was she_? _Well, at least now she knew where they stood. But the last thing she wanted from him was pity. Somehow she needed to rectify this situation, or she could never look him in the eyes again. And so Lisbon laughed, making Jane, who was still moving around in agitation, looking back at her, staggered._

_ "Oh my god, Jane, you didn't think I wanted to...," she gestured between them, speaking with as much conviction as she could muster, though her heart was hammering inside her chest. "I was about to hug you...you realize that right?" _

_ Jane wrapped himself in his coat and his eyes shifted restlessly around the room before they settled on her, a wary look on his face._

_ "Please, you're my friend Jane. I mean even if I had, you know, which I didn't," she added hurriedly, "Your friendship is much too precious for me to even entertain the remote possibility of...uh. So, cool down." She laughed again for good measure. Wrapping her own blazer tighter around herself. His face spoke volumes. He didn't believe one word, but didn't contradict her either; instead reverted back to pace along the room._

_ Forty minutes later, spent in silence, the door opened. "You're always a cool customer Jane, but did you have to take it so literally," Cho greeted them, and probably expected some witty rejoinder, but neither Jane nor Lisbon were in any mood to do so. _

_ It had taken them another two days to find the missing girl. Luckily __she'd still been__ alive, unlike some others beforehand. And they had caught Stephens―of course._

The slamming of car doors made Lisbon jump. She shook her head; it wouldn't help her to get caught up in things she couldn't change. And speaking of things she couldn't change...

Extricating the note from her pockets she decided to dial the first number on it, and sent a silent prayer that at least one of these numbers were still in working order. Her finger tapping the phone's casing in nervousness stilled just right before the disappointment set in when hearing the words: _"The number you have dialled is no longer in use, check the number and dial again or consult directory enquiries." Sheep dip..._

Ending the call, Lisbon unfurled the note cramped in her other hand, currently not holding the phone, and punched in the second number. Pressing the phone to her ear, she started chewing on her thumbnail. If this number was out of commission too, she needed a new plan.

Grasping her hair in frustration she was about to hang up when all of a sudden the ringing subsided and a deep male voice was heard on the other end. "Yes?"

Relief washed through her and for a moment she couldn't speak and stood paralyzed.

"Hello? Who's there? ID yourself," the man commanded, but there was a definite hitch to his voice; he sounded alarmed.

Lisbon let loose of her hair and her hand fell down at her side. She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"Sir. It-it's Lisbon. Uh, it's been a while...I think we need to talk. Urgently."

xxxxx

"_Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future." ― Oscar Wilde_

xxxxx

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**A/N:** I probably better duck, lol. But hey, it can't be that easy, it's Jane and Lisbon after all.

Let me know what you think, Review's are welcomed.


	4. Ghosts Of The Past

**A/N: **Sorry for the wait, but my life, as well as my beta's, were really demanding lately.**  
**

Thanks again to my wonderful beta wimmer511 (who just posted Chapter 8 of her fic "Post Red", you should definitely check it out, if you haven't already ;)

Thanks to the one's who left a review, greatly appreciated. Also thanks to Guest, Erin (well, you might be onto something, you have to read and see ;) ), and Noyra (yep, thats where I got the idea from) who I couldn't respond to directly.

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***Chapter 4*: Ghosts Of The Past**

xxxxx

"_If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself."_― _George Orwell_

xxxxx

Kim Fischer knew that most people thought of her as a cold, well, _Fish_. And she knew she was partly to blame for this perception of her person. She was a single child, and told from a young age that if she worked hard and didn't care what other people thought of her, only then could she achieve something in life. With this attitude her parents had become lawyers. Very good lawyers. If they were also very good parents, she wasn't so sure.

She'd spent most of her childhood in company of Nannies because her parents were too busy working. And so it was that Kim, instead of hanging out with friends, hung out with books, crime novels being her favorite. Over time they turned into study books of criminology and before she knew it, she mastered her classes and was accepted at the FBI academy and_―_after a twenty_-_week long training course_―_right behind a desk at the Quantico Office, joining Abbott's team.

Almost one year ago then, he'd asked her to follow him to the, new erected, Austin office. Building a new team which was supposed to solve special cases with the help of the man they'd wanted to arrest the year before_―_at least that's what the big-wigs wanted.

As it turned out, Jane had been hard to find and once they'd found him, the jurisdiction presented a problem. Besides, Abbott had been certain that Patrick Jane wasn't just going to join them; and so her boss had made her the enticing offer to go undercover and keep tabs on Jane, to make sure they'd found the right one. If she accepted she would get her own team_―_under Abbott's supervision. The things she had worked hard for her whole life were right there in front of her, she just had to take the opportunity. And what did her mother always say: _'Opportunity seldom knocks twice.'_

The rest is history_, _and here she was with her own team. The only trouble she had now was the very man she had gotten this job for in the first place. Jane was a nuisance; and it still baffled her how Lisbon had managed not to shoot him in over a decade, and how she had controlled him, for starters.

Fischer still wasn't convinced about this whole "involvement" thing, because Jane didn't listen to anyone, period. So, why had he changed his rules for Lisbon? Fischer knew about the piles of complaints Jane had amassed for his former boss, but Lisbon had never _lost _her job. Fischer was sure this small but important fact had Jane written all over it.

And not only their previous liaison seemed strange, but when Jane had made Lisbon his number one term, Fischer would have betted her savings on the fact that there was more than friendship between these two. Who else, in his right mind, would rather spend the rest of his life in jail than working and even getting paid for it?

When Lisbon eluded her question about the nature of their relationship_―_she admitted it had been highly unprofessional, but she just couldn't help it at the time_―_it had made her put out her feelers. Now a few months, and lots of close-up observations later, Fischer surmised that the only two people not realizing they were head-over-heels in love with each other, were the two people in question.

Fischer had to admit, throwing Marcus Pike into the equation hadn't exactly gone as planned. Who would have thought a man as perceptive as Jane was so oblivious to his own feelings. It wasn't so much of a shock when Lisbon had started dating Pike, he was a fine man after all_. _That Jane was just standing by, watching,was though.

Fischer sighed, shaking her head. How could Jane not realize what he felt...or did he? She didn't know him well, but one thing had become fairly obvious, as cocky and smug as Jane was, he was also incredibly vulnerable, she had seen this part of him on the Island. The part, that if she was honest, had made her second-guess herself, she couldn't believe she'd been smitten by a criminal, and at times still was. So was it in the realm of possibility that Patrick Jane was afraid? Afraid of being rejected by Lisbon?

Signing the last of her paperwork Fischer stretched, her thoughts wandering to the brunette woman. She liked Lisbon, and not only for the circumstance that her presence made it easier to handle Jane. But the few times they had talked it was obvious, despite their different upbringings, their end goal had been the same: Success on the job, even if this meant to sacrifice one's social life. Not being an expert on friendships, Fischer hoped that maybe they could shape something...similar.

Glancing at the clock, she was surprised to see that a whole hour had passed. Abbott appeared to still be cooped up in his super secret meeting with these guys from DHS. Usually her boss told her about things, especially if they concerned an on-going case, but this time Abbott had been extremely evasive. The only thing he told her was that they didn't want to be disturbed.

Grabbing her glass of water Fischer felt a small pinch in her stomach. Maybe she should pay the restroom a visit again, she'd gotten so distracted, it had been while.

Walking down the corridor, she looked into the bullpen and saw that Jane was still napping on his brown leather couch. That was another of his quirks. But, she conceded, also somewhat cute. At times he reminded her of a little boy, albeit a little boy that could cause the Apocalypse if you left him to his own devices for too long.

Arriving at her desired destination, the restroom in the basement_―_most of the women didn't come here and so it was always pleasantly empty_―_she was about to push the door open when she heard a voice coming from the inside. Leaning against the door, she tried to detect who it was. She had no desire to have Nicole chewing off her ear again, that woman was a master chatterbox. You have a secret you want to make the round? Tell Nicole, and the whole office will know in no time.

Biting her lower lip in concentration, Fischer was careful to open the door only a gap. To her surprise, in the mirror reflection, she spotted Lisbon, hunched over the sink with her eyes closed. _Does she still have a migraine?_ Fischer wondered and was about to step inside when Lisbon started talking again_. _Trying to see more of the room, Fischer noticed that Lisbon was alone.

"Robin is dead. Robin...is dead." _Who is Robin? And why didn't she say anything?_

Fischer decided, eavesdropping on someone she wanted to build a friendship with wouldn't be a good start. Looked like the green-eyed woman had just lost someone close to her, maybe she could give some comfort. That couldn't be so hard, a lot of people did that every day, right?

The moment Fischer opened the door Lisbon's head shot up, her eyes wide open in shock. For a second she focused on Fischer in the mirror, but then turned around and faced the fellow agent, who looked like a child caught with her fingers in the cookie jar.

"Uh, I'm sorry...I didn't mean to be listening," Fischer explained hastily. "I just needed to use the...uh...and heard you talking. I thought it might be Nicole and...," Fischer pattered, gesturing in all directions. _Wow, very smooth, Kim_.

Lisbon looked at her, patently shell-shocked for a while, then relaxed and put on a smile, tucking her long dark hair behind her ear. "No worries. I was just talking to myself."

"I heard. Well, since I couldn't help but overhear it. My condolences Lisbon, I'm very sorry for your loss. May I...ask who Robin was?" Fischer asked gingerly, hoping it wasn't any of Lisbon's brothers.

Lisbon averted her eyes, looking down at the cold white tiles. "A...friend. A friend of mine," she replied, and Fischer could hear her choke.

"I'm sorry. When did it happen?"

A twisted grin came over Lisbon's face, and she bit down on her lower lip before she said, "Thank you, but it-it's been a long time ago. I just...his anniversary was two days ago, and I had completely forgotten about it til now." Lisbon wiped briefly at her misty eyes with her cotton sleeves.

"Oooh, so this why you're not feeling well. You should have said something. He seemed to have been a good friend." Fischer wasn't sure what to make of Lisbon's strangled sounding snort that followed her response.

"Yes, a _very _close friend," Lisbon answered, staring at herself in the mirror again. Finally Lisbon straightened and came over to Fischer. "Would you do me a favor and not mention any of this to anyone. No one..._knows _about him, it's...complicated."

Fischer swallowed hard and cast her eyes downwards for awhile, overwhelmed that the petite woman would trust her with such an obviously important secret. "Sure. Promise," she told Lisbon with an encouraging smile, and watched as Lisbon returned the smile and then left.

Almost forgotten was the reason she'd come down here for. The renewed pinch in her lower region though made Fischer jump-start to one of the closed doors.

xxxxx

The familiar sound of boots striding toward Lisbon's desk made Jane open his eyes. Hands folded behind his head, he squinted in her direction and saw Lisbon sitting down, closing the second drawer of her desk. She looked tense again.

Heading over to Lisbon a few minutes later, he saw Fischer crossing the bullpen for Cho's workspace. And then, in the last moment, caught Lisbon's eyes following Fischer, forehead wrinkled with worry.

Jane hoped, for Fischer's sake, she hadn't reprimanded Lisbon for just leaving the office without informing anyone. Fischer was definitely capable of that. Sometimes she was a worse rule-stickler than Lisbon had been. Well, perhaps she needed to be reminded that it was Lisbon he was behaving for, and that any untoward behavior toward Lisbon would have serious repercussions for Fischer's paperwork.

For now he would concentrate on Lisbon though. And he wouldn't let her get away with the usual _"I'm fine!"_ She was clearly anything but fine, and he intended to solve at least this mystery now.

"Hey Lisbon," he said cheerfully, rocking back and forth on his heels behind her. "Forgotten your extra strong cuppa' coffee this morning?"

Puzzled, Lisbon stopped fiddling with her mouse, shooting him a vexed look. "What?"

"C-o-f-f-e-e. Coffee, Lisbon. That hot brew you use to recharge your batteries with, the disgusting brown liquid..."

"Yeah, yeah I know what a _coffee _is, Jane. I will ask again_, _knowing I might regret it_, _what?"

"Well, your hasty departure a while ago," he said warily. He had to tread carefully here or he'd get a punch instead of answers.

Lisbon groaned inadvertently. She really didn't need this conversation now,_ or ever_. "None of your business, Jane." Then she was struck by an idea. "But if you have to know, I was meeting Marcus for lunch and forgot about it, all right?"

"Ah," he replied, and pursed his lips.

Lisbon rolled her eyes, taking a deep breath. "_Ah?_"

"Ah. Because Marcus seemed to have forgotten your lunch-date too. After you left, I saw him walking down to his unit. Didn't seem to be in a hurry."

Lisbon winced. _And this is why I'm a horrible liar_. Turning back to her monitor she tried to defuse the situation. "Uh, yeah, we both forgot_―_happens."

Jane stopped his movements and clenched his jaw. "Bullshit," he said, so only she could hear, and was slightly satisfied when Lisbon visibly twitched. She wasn't used to him cussing, but he was starting to get angry. Now she resorted to lying. Why didn't she confide in him? Clearly his plan of taking babysteps needed to be revised. "That's enough. Come on," Jane said, not hesitating to grab Lisbon by her arm, effectively pulling her out of her chair.

"What the..._Jane_, stop it, let me go," she commanded with a sharp tone, but he ignored her.

While Fischer and Cho watched them leave the bullpen with a curious expression, a few of the other agents present concealed their smirks. They had wondered all along when Jane finally couldn't stand it anymore and would stake his claim. They liked Agent Pike well enough, but since these two had started working here, it baffled anyone how they could not see what everyone else,minus Pike_, _could see. Looked like things were starting to get interesting again. Hopefully Abbott wouldn't be a spoilsport.

Unbeknownst to the their fellow colleagues thoughts, Jane dragged Lisbon through the corridor, looking for a room that wasn't confined by four walls of glass. They needed privacy. Jane noted gleefully that though Lisbon still protested behind him_―_albeit she had resorted to hissing so no one else would hear_―_she didn't try to free herself from his hold. Speaking of hold, the feel of her small hand in his sent a shiver through him, as it always did when he was touching her. One of the reasons he tried to keep body contact,of any kind,to a minimum. He still wanted to slap himself for his lapse in New York.

After two minutes, and few left and right turns, he stopped abruptly when he found a door on his left that was indeed attached to actual walls. Yanking the door open, he didn't waste time to see what the room contained, and hauled Lisbon in behind him. Then he turned them around and closed the door. They found themselves standing in absolute darkness, and something he couldn't identify poked him in the back. But that was nothing to the "poke" that he suddenly felt in his stomach. "Oww," he whined. _Yeah, that had felt distinctively like Lisbon's fist._

"I can't believe you...," she yelled, most likely in his general direction, but who knew, since he couldn't see anything in the darkness. "Dragging me all the way through the office. _God_, what will they be thinking?"

"Meh, the usual. That we're making out in..._oomph_," Jane started jokingly, but was stopped by another one of Lisbon's not so gentle "pokes".

"Perfect, _just perfect_. As if they don't already think I only got this job because I'm your booty call...urgh. Is there a freakin' light switch in here?" She growled and Jane considered it might be wise to leave the light out, but this storage room was of the smaller variant and so there was no place to hide from her fury anyway.

"Wait. I'll check." Feeling with his left hand along the door, he felt a small bump a few inches next to the frame and pushed the switch on top of it down. The light that now shown though wasn't much to speak of, its best days were clearly gone. But at least they could make out some contours.

"Voilá," he grinned at her, but the grin fell when he discerned Lisbon's pissed off expression, right before she swatted his arm_―_hard. Well, at least she'd spared his stomach this time. And, he noted with interest, she wasn't trying to make a run for it_―_yet.

"Now, Lisbon. No violence, please. Let me explain," he held up his hands in defence, and Lisbon folded her arms in front of her chest, her jaw set in irritation.

"Oh, this had better be good," she huffed, and a choked laugh escaped her throat. "What is it with you and gloomy storage rooms?"

She had meant it as a joke, but the moment the last words had left her mouth, a different sort of tension filled the tiny cubicle. And both occupants stared at each other in sudden awareness, making Lisbon blush with renewed embarrassment and averting her eyes hastily.

Jane though had a different epiphany all of a sudden. He was the one that should feel ashamed for acting the way he had,for the coward he was,not her. Maybe it was time to at least acknowledge..._something_. The past few nights had been hell, while he had managed to forget the almost kiss in daylight, the nights had been torture. It had been all he could think about, which had catapulted him back to his insomnia, full force.

Was it so bad to tell her what he felt? She clearly wasn't averse to the idea of _them―_at least she hadn't been. Also the dim light gave him a sense of security. And all it would take were three little words. He had brought her here to find out what was going on with her, but maybe he should start this whole thing from an entirely different angle. "Lisbon," he started tentatively. He needed to choose his words carefully, or she would run for the hills. "What happened in New York...uh, I mean what I did...um, no, what _you _did," Jane spluttered, but didn't get to finish.

Lisbon cut him off, the red flush of cheeks now from simmering anger rather than mortification. "What, Jane? What did I do?...I was a little _hyped up_." Her stare was unwavering, for which she complimented herself. But really, she was tired of it all. She had more important things to take care of right now than, once again, doing this weird dance with Jane that always ended with her having a broken heart.

Jane on his end had the decency to look sheepishly at the altered rejoinder of what he once had told her. And by the looks of it Lisbon was far from being finished.

"I've all but had it with you now," she fumed. The last days and hours practically breaking out of her. She felt like a water boiler, the pressure of everything that was happening starting to spill over the top. "You made me look like a fool, you know that? Have you any idea of what it felt like?"

Jane's face contorted. He wished he could turn back time and tell himself to finally man up, instead of tucking in his tail in fear of losing her friendship, and of something he still couldn't define. "Lisbon...no, _Teresa_. I'm sorry...you don't know _how _sorry," he murmured the last part, and Lisbon had almost not caught it. "I shouldn't have stopped you, because the truth is...I...I-I" _Just say it!, _his mind screamed, but his tongue just wouldn't comply.

Lisbon watched him with wide eyes, not believing where this seemed to be going. Her heart started picking up speed, but not for the _right _reason. Was he really about to make some sort of confession. Now? When her world was falling apart as it was. For the second time in a week she wanted to cry. Why did they always have to have such a bad timing? Why couldn't it, just once, be easy for them?

Lisbon sighed, this time she would be the one to stop him. As much as she had dreamed of this day, there were more important things than their feelings. "Don't Jane. Don't say it. I don't wanna hear it. You constantly play with emotions of other people, to either solve a case or just because it's fun for you. And every time you'd use mine against me, I still would tell myself later that I was an exception. That it was different. What kind of idiot does that make me?" she laughed humorlessly.

"The truth is I was convenient. Who else would have put up with you but '_Saint Teresa' _and her Daddy issues. Always understanding and forgiving. And I did, over and over again," Lisbon sighed. "It took me two years to make piece with the fact that you would never come back. And when I finally had, _Bam_, Jane the Magician appears out of nowhere and just continues where he left off, turning everything upside down, expecting me to follow without even having the decency to ask."

Lisbon shifted, as much as she could, her head lifted and eyes closed to regain some of her composure. But she was on a role now. "For someone who always knows what other people want and desire you extraordinarily oblivious to your own feelings. God, Jane, look at you. You're stuck between your past and moving on for the better part of two years..._at least_. And you're still not ready." She cast his wedding ring a pointed look.

"You know what I think? I think your constant desire to meddle with everybody's lives results from the fact that you don't want to face your own. You're leading everyone through the house of mirrors, but forget to just once look at your own reflection, scared it could mislead you and trap you. If there was one good thing about this whole fiasco, it was that I finally saw what a complete idiot I was for thinking there could be something..." She trailed off, choking on her words. "I guess I should thank you. Thank you for finally making me see that this," she gestured between them, "is not what I want. I've always been a sucker for the broken man...maybe it's because of my past, who knows. But I finally understood that I can escape this..._Marcus _showed me that I can escape this vicious circle."

With the mention of Marcus, Jane, for the first time since she'd started speaking, showed an another mien: he cringed, making Lisbon snort.

"It's almost pathetic Jane. All this," Lisbon threw her arms in the air, indicating the room around them. "Is because you feel I'm distancing myself from you, isn't it? Since Marcus all this..._hovering _has increased. And then I show just the slightest resistance and you think you have to get to the bottom of it. I tell you what, you don't. I'm an adult, a cop, and I can take care of myself. Just stop it," she told him firmly. The renewed pained expression on his face told her, so far, her improvised plan was working. Closing her eyes, Lisbon prepared herself for the last but pointed blow.

"If you have _any _ounce of respect for me and our friendship, then you will respect my decisions. Let's be colleagues. Maybe this is what you need too, to finally open up to someone else. We've been trying to keep up our friendship... but maybe, with Red John out of the way, t-there is nothing left? We're totally different people, maybe... we need to start from scratch again, each for himself... but for now let's leave it at that."

She looked him straight in the eyes, and she could see how he desperately tried to find a tell that screamed she was lying, that she didn't mean any of this. Lisbon recognized the moment he gave up, the spark usually present in his sea-green eyes, went out like a flame that got suffocated because there was no air left too feed it. He didn't answer nor give any other sign of acceptance; but that was fine, his motionlessness was as good of an answer as any. With one last nod she left the room, and a devastated Jane behind her.

Outside the door Lisbon leaned her back against it, trying hard to hold in the tears. She told herself that she had done what she needed to do. It would be better this way. It would save him.

Inside the room, braced with both hands against the door and staring at the floor, the only thought Jane's brain was capable of was: _This did not go the way I had planned―at all._

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Ten minutes later, back in the bullpen, Lisbon busied herself with papers she'd already been through multiple times, ignoring the curious looks on Fischer's and Cho's faces, and hoping that Jane would stay out of the bullpen for a while longer, licking his wounds in silence.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sound erupting from her desk drawer. Pulling it open, she looked inside and did a double take at her work phone and the had gotten the same brand deliberately, so none of the others would become suspicious, but Lisbon needed to be careful to not mix them up herself.

Grabbing the right one from her drawer she read the message on the display that had just arrived, when Fischer appeared in front of her. "Lisbon, meeting with the Lab guys. They managed to extract the fingerprints," she told her and Lisbon threw the phone back, grabbing the other and hurried after Fischer.

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Emerging from the break room a while later_―_no he hadn't been hiding from Lisbon, really, he hadn't_―_Jane saw, to his utter relief, that Lisbon wasn't there. Fischer and Cho were gone too, in fact, everyone usually busying around was nowhere to be found. Jane shrugged and lay down on his couch, his mind overtaken by thoughts of Lisbon and what had happened twenty-three minutes and thirty-four seconds ago.

It had hurt what she'd said, stung massively, and while preparing his tea Jane had made the decision to give Lisbon the space she wanted. For now. _But _he was also determined, he wouldn't give up, he wasn't that type of man, he was the obsessive type, that would hang on to something until he got it. A ten year devotion to a serial killer to avenge his family was proof of this, wasn't it?

Jane hadn't found a tell that Lisbon had been lying exactly_, _but there had been so much going on inside her eyes, it was like trying to watch several movies at the same time_―_plus the incredibly bad lighting. On top of this, since his return from the Island he'd had difficulty reading her anyway, even the most simple things seemed to be veiled by milk glass these days. And instead of adjusting, he had the feeling it was getting worse and worse, no matter what he'd tried to tell himself for months now. He tried to engage her, she retreated. They were doing a dance and he seemed to misstep all the way, resulting in stepping on her toes.

One thing was clear though, she was,and would be,insecure of the honesty of his feelings. Revisiting what she'd said, he knew she had all the right to be. Nothing he'd done in the past would reassure her of anything emotional he'd say. He'd always chickened out, or sent her a hell of a lot mixed signals.

So the plan he needed to come up with needed to make her understand his intentions were absolutely honest, and that he _was _on his way to moving on. Although, as of now, he was at a loss of _how _to convince her of his sincerity. Starting to respect her decision, no matter how much it hurt, might be a start though. Jane pouted. He did find it a bit unfair, because she must've seen his attempts at becoming a better man during the last months.

Sighing, Jane rubbed his left hand over his face and felt the cold metal against his skin. He scrutinized the golden ring, tugging at it slightly with his right thumb and index finger. He knew as long he was wearing this, Lisbon had always a safe argument to keep the status quo between them. Taking it off was something he wasn't yet ready to do. Though, he had to confess, if someone asked him why, he wouldn't know the answer to that question. It felt as if he was waiting for something to happen, waiting for _the sign_. Anyway, suffice was: He'd have to hatch an elaborate plan, and, in the meantime, hope Marcus wouldn't make too much headway.

Jane turned on his side, tucking his hands between his bent knees. Unfortunately the pleasant silence in the bullpen was halted by a buzzing sound. Lifting his head to make out where the sound was coming from, Jane was surprised to find it coming very clearly out of Lisbon's desk. _Odd_, she usually didn't leave her phone behind.

When the buzzing stopped, Jane contemplated lying back down, but something_―_okay, his inherent nosiness_―_made him walk over to her desk. Taking a quick glance around, he made sure no one was watching. The CBI definitely had had quite a lot of benefits the F.B.I. didn't. Enough corners and walls to peek through stuff unseen, for example.

Registering he was still the only one around, Jane opened the drawer and discovered Lisbon's phone. Pressing the home button, a message stared back at him from the shiny display_, _received just a few minutes ago. Apparently she hadn't opened it yet: '_Tonight, 6.30 pm, Usual place. George, S.' _

Jane thought he might have a stroke. Who the hell was "_George S?". _"_Usual Place?", _well this sounded like they were meeting,he refused to use the word _dating, _for quite some time.

Hearing footsteps coming closer Jane dropped the phone back and closed the drawer. He threw himself back on the couch and feigned sleep, his mind working like a speed train. _Who the hell was _George? He couldn't remember anyone they'd met recently with this name. The little tidbit about the meeting place was the most unsettling. _George _didn't need to write down an actual venue because they already had a concrete one. And why so cryptic? Apart from the fact it was Lisbon he was thinking about, he had to conclude, if he'd find such a message on a suspects phone, he would draw a pretty simple conclusion: the receiver of the message was cheating.

"Jane, there you are. Abbott wants to see us, come on," Fischer's voice resounded, slightly annoyed, from the entry. Not even bothering to pretend he hadn't heard her, he stood up and trotted after her, still deep in thought.

Of all people, Lisbon was the prime example of the good human,_ the Saint_, she opposed to cheating just as much as to murder, maybe even more so. But then, was she really cheating? A few dates with Marcus didn't make them exclusive. And would she be the 'have-two-strings-to-one's-bow' kinda person?

Her words from New York came back to his mind: _"_Some _men_ want to date me."Men-plural. She must have been talking about this _George _guy. _Mmh_, perhaps he could follow her this evening, see who this cretin was...but that was kind of troublesome if the only vehicles you possessed were an Airstream trailer and an eggshell-blue Citroën one would spot a mile away_―_or an F.B.I. licensed plate SUV for that matter. And if she spotted him, he wouldn't need to hatch a plan to win her heart, but one to escape her wrath.

Frowning, Jane wanted to kick something. Marcus alone was a huge problem, this "George Clooney" character was an unknown menace he really didn't need. Naturally, fate had to pee even more on his head and throw in another obstacle. Then again, he'd had her at his side for ten years and taken it for granted, he supposed this was an adequate punishment; watching her being ensnared by other men, while keeping her distance from him.

Waiting for Fischer to open the door of the secure conference room, Jane resolved, Lisbon,or anyone for that matter,mustn't know that his heart had just made acquaintance with a bulldozer in form of a text message.

For a moment, he childishly contemplated not sitting down next to Lisbon, who was watching Abbott purposefully, but then he changed his mind. He was good at pretending after all. Because in the end, no matter who Lisbon chose, he knew not having her in his life at all would be the worst outcome.

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The smoke pricked her eyes as Lisbon stood, on the stroke of six-thirty pm, in the entrance of an english pub in Georgetown. Good thing Sinclair had told her upfront they would meet close to Austin; she still had mulled over the meaning of "George" for a good hour before making use of a map.

Passing table for table she glanced at her watch. In that moment she saw a man with short light-brown hair, wrapped up in an expensive looking coat, sitting at the farthest table in a corner, waving at her. A glass of ginger ale placed in front of him. _Some things never change_.

When she came closer he stood up and nodded in greeting. "Teresa. Long time no see. Please take a seat." Lisbon slipped into the booth opposite of him and couldn't help but raise her eyebrow in amusement, when she noticed the tell-tale behavior of a man that worked in intelligence. He'd chosen the table furthest from the entrance to hide himself, and at the same time it gave him the perfect opportunity to observe the people all around.

"Sinclair," she nodded, returning the courtesies. "I wish I could say that it is good to see you, but you know that'd be a lie."

He gave her a mirthless smile. "True. So, let's not beat around the bush. What do you know?"

Lisbon relaxed a bit, for what felt like the first time since returning from New York. She bowed her head and let her shoulders slump before catching his eyes. Wiping her sweaty hands on her Jean's-clad thighs. "Brady is back. I haven't seen him, but I _know _it's him. He...uh...sent me a letter, sans his name of course, but what he's written...it-it's something only he can know," she told the dark-haired man, who nodded in understanding.

"Yes. Brady is on the run. He escaped prison two months ago."

"Two months? He was sitting in a prison cell in Minnesota, how is it possible that it isn't all over the news?" She had raised her voice a little halfway through, in fury, and quickly turned around to see if they had any listeners. But the folk-songs playing in the background, forced the other customers to speak rather loudly themselves.

Sinclair suddenly was unable to hold eye contact and scratched at his chin. "Yeah, about that... there's something you should know," he started and Lisbon narrowed her eyes at him. "He never was in _Minnesota_. He was in... _Russia_."

"W-What? But," Lisbon flustered. "_You, _you told me..." her voice pitched up again; this time in outrage.

"Only a very few people knew his true whereabouts." With his arms propped up on the table he pressed his thumbs to the sides of his nose. "Look, what's important to know is, DHS and the State Department know about Brady. They've already interviewed me. Listen, I know you're working on a case with the F.B.I. right now, Townsend and Blackstone, right?" Sinclair looked up at her again.

Lisbon's eyes widened in comprehension. "Yes. And I know, we just had a meeting. My boss, Dennis Abbott, told us that the DHS will help us with the "investigation" tomorrow. Brady left a ring behind at the first crime scene...at least I'm thinking it's his. I'd hoped it was..."

"Coincidence? Please, Teresa. Don't be so naive," he patronized her. "He wanted you to know. Townsend was a very rich man, contractor to the US Government. How big was the chance the local Police would keep that case? What do you think? No, he knew the F.B.I. would take over, _you _would take over. But these murders aren't just a decoy. Townsend's and Blackstone's company's...well, let's just say they performed a lot of "unregistered" business. Amongst them: shipping Brady to East-Europe fifteen years ago."

"Why Russia?" Lisbon asked in a low voice, she was still trying to process this bit of information.

"Uh, you see, the information, the knowledge he had was invaluable. But you also know what a tough S.O.B. he is. Did you think our dainty prisons could make him talk?" he asked, and grimaced.

"You... _tortured _him," Lisbon stated, disgusted.

Sinclair shook his head, his mouth twitching. "I'm impressed, I've gotta say. I thought at some point he'd just die. His sojourn there was by no means a vacation. That place is hell on earth, I tell you. But it seems we underestimated his pride; his will."

"You always believed you knew him, but you never did."

"And _you _do?" Sinclair's tone conveyed an unspoken question.

Lisbon clenched her jaw. She really wanted to punch him. "I think no one really does."

Not responding to any of that, he observed Lisbon, his gaze reminiscent of Jane's. She sighed. "Fine. How does he even know where I am. _Who _I am. I thought 'The List'," she mimicked air quotes, "was classified?"

"Four weeks ago I got a call from my colleagues in Paris. They told me Benjamin Gilles had died. Car accident."

Lisbon gasped. "He's dead?"

"Yes. But unlike the officials, we know that this wasn't an accident. A week after his death, two of the men who helped us "delivering" Brady died too. One by heart failure; the other supposedly shot his wife and his three young kids before hanging himself, left a farewell note_―_in his handwriting. The officials had no reason to investigate any further, but we knew that three dead men who only but once worked on the same case were more than contingency. We found a huge amount of money on Gilles' account, though everyone knew he had debts_―_thanks to his gambling addiction. We believe that Brady bribed Gilles to tell him the names."

"No," Lisbon said with conviction and shook her head. "He wouldn't do that. And why would Brady pay him if he planned on killing him anyway?"

"It wasn't that much, we think it was a deposit to make him believe they were serious. Once they had the names," Sinclair made a cutting movement along his throat.

"He sold us out?" Lisbon whispered in disbelief.

"Yes. I'm glad you called. I would have contacted you soon. The thing is, you know how Brady operates. I brought my wife and son in safety, not far from here, which is why I was able to meet you so quickly. I don't know if you and your brothers are on speaking terms... but it really doesn't matter actually. Tell me where to find them so I can get them out of the danger zone."

"Ahm...yes. I-I'll write their addresses down for you. What will you tell them? They don't know anything," Lisbon replied, her voice had grown small.

"And that won't change. You're working in law enforcement. They don't need to know _who _it is they need to be protected from," Sinclair looked at her with a sad expression. "I'm sorry Teresa, I really am. And I was sorry to hear about Sam. He didn't deserve to die the way he did. He was a good cop."

"Yes, he was," she answered curtly, not wanting to dwell on her former mentors death. "Do you have any idea where Brady is?"

"We've tried to track him down. We're observing every single airport for incoming flights_―_private jets specifically. Six days ago, a jet from London arrived on a small airport close to Tucson, Arizona. And although the resolution wasn't the best, it was definitely Brady on the footage."

"I see. Time's running out I guess," Lisbon said downcast, but her mind snatched onto a thought. "What if we tell my team? Maybe you've heard of Patrick Jane. He's a genius, he could..."

"No! No, Lisbon, _no one _can know, no one!" Sinclair interrupted her. "Unless you want to get them killed_, _don't tell them."

"But..."

"No buts. You know what Brady's capable of. We can't get more people into this than absolutely necessary. The DHS and State Department are already a problem. Maybe you should think about hiding for a while. Me and my team are working on finding Brady. I hope this nightmare will be over soon, but as long as he's out there you have to be careful," Sinclair said sincerely. He had grabbed her hands during his speech and squeezed them hard. Looking at her apologetically, he let go again.

Taking a pen from the inside of his coat he held it out for Lisbon and she picked up a napkin to write her brothers addresses down. Finished with that she rolled the pen back over the table to Sinclair and stood up, pulling at the lapels of her jacket. "Take care."

"You too, Teresa. You too." She nodded and left the pub.

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Darkness had set down on the city of Austin and Lisbon felt the same reaching out for her heart. Like a cloud encircling the beating organ, coming closer and closer, waiting to suffocate her.

Lisbon turned off the car and stepped out into the night. She stretched her sore muscles, inhaling the humid air. A shiver ran through her body and she crossed her arms to rub them warm. Although the shudder could be explained by the uneasy feeling of being watched.

And then there was the conversation with Sinclair still on her mind. If the DHS agents really would let them in on the case tomorrow, then he was right, they would be finding something eventually. She needed a plan, but hiding wouldn't be it. She still had a hard time believing Benjamin had sold them out, on the other hand, Brady had always been very persuasive, and seemed to instinctively know where to find your point of weakness.

Walking past the bushes that girded the stairs to her front porch, Lisbon fiddled with the keys in her cold hand and let herself in. Throwing them in the bowl on the dresser that stood back in its old space. Shrugging off her jacket she hung it on the rack. She would drink a glass of wine, or maybe two, that should help shutting her brain off and then hopefully have a soporific effect and make her fall asleep_―_if only for a few hours.

Standing in the archway to the living room Lisbon felt along the wall in search for the light switch. But just when she found it, the table lamp next to her sofa went on. And the smooth, deep, Irish accented voice that floated through the air made her heart stop.

"Good evening Robin...or shall I say..._Teresa_?"

xxxxx

"_Because this is what happens when you try to run from the past. It just doesn't catch up, it overtakes … blotting out the future." ― Sarah Dessen_

xxxxx

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**A/N:** Did I mention I like getting reviews :)


	5. The List

**A/N:** So I left things on a mean cliffy, and then I left you waiting, sorry for that, but life is life, I guess.

Thanks to my beta wimmer511, and check out her new fic "The Fun House" which will be awesome from what I know about it, and have already read.

This chapter will finally (and hopefully) give you some answers to what exactly is going on, so this is going to be pretty information heavy, hope it's not too boring, cause this one was giving me some serious headaches. And here we go...

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***Chapter 5*: The List**

xxxxx

"_My family is my strength and my weakness." __― __Aishwarya Rai Bachchan_

xxxxx

_"Good evening Robin, or shall I say _Teresa_?" _

Lisbon stood frozen to the place and could only watch the man sitting relaxed in her sofa next to the fireplace. The fire, she hadn't even realized was crackling, casting shadows across his face. _This must be a dream, _yes_, a nightmare. I just need to wake up_... _Why am I not waking up?_

"You're looking good. I like what you did with your hair," he said , a leering smile on his lips, as he caressed her face with his eyes. "Why don't you take a seat. I think we have a lot to catch up on." He moved his hand and gestured at the couch inviting her to sit down.

Slowly Lisbon moved over, eyes trained on each other. Only when she sat down, sideways across from him, she took a quick glance around, trying to see into the kitchen to gauge if he'd come alone.

As if sensing her unspoken question, Brady answered, "Don't worry. It's only me. Although Kenny was really looking forward to seeing you again," he tilted his head a little and took off his leather gloves, depositing them on the armrest.

Lisbon forced herself to relax; it wouldn't help showing him her uncertainty. "I bet. Can't say the feeling is mutual," she replied and was surprised at how strong her voice sounded; because her pulse was jumping madly.

Brady laughed. "You can't blame him, you gave him a hard time."

"For your attention?" Lisbon replied bravely, and Brady's smile vanished, but he composed himself quickly and smirked.

"He'd never had the bollox that you had. Thick as shite; didn't like it that a woman outflanked him. But he's gotten over it," he said, a dark shadow crossing his face. "We all had _a lot of time _to get over it."

Lisbon swallowed and felt an unwanted need to explain herself. "I didn't know where they would take you. They didn't tell me anything about their plans. I-I was a mere foot soldier."

"You were more than that. _Way _more. Don't sell yourself so short," he returned smoothly.

"My point is, they lied to me. I didn't know they'd take you to somewhere in Siberia."

"Tell me," Brady regarded her for a second. "Would it have made a difference to you?"

"Yes. I don't believe in torture. Not even for someone like you," she answered and knew she was walking on thin ice, which could crack any moment if she said the wrong thing.

Brady laughed again and his cold eyes focused back on her. "You don't believe in torture," he echoed her words, straightened and leaned slightly over to her so their eyes were fixed onto each other, his voice dropping to a dangerous level. "Because of you I spent the last fifteen years in a clatty little shitehole in the freezing cold of Siberia. And the clatter they gave me wasn't the real torture I had to endure," he paused, his eyes shifting back and forth between hers... but then he changed the topic. "Imagine my surprise when I came across your name, realizing who you really were... _are_." He all but spat the last words at her, then leaned back and folded his hands.

"I was doing my job," Lisbon countered, and cringed inwardly at just how lame that sounded.

"Hm, and what a job_,_" he said accusatory. For a moment both were silent, then Brady's tone became more gentle, but the danger in his voice was still present. "You know what I want."

She gulped and looked downwards. "I-I can't tell you. I don't know."

"Is there anything you know?" Brady replied sympathetically which made her wince.

"I know that I can't let you leave my house alive," Lisbon told him with more confidence than she felt. Ever since Volker she had made a habit out of jamming one of her guns below the couch. It wouldn't take much to rip it from beneath the furniture.

Brady only grinned. "Sure, but then you won't leave this house alive either, and you know it. And look at it this way, you let me walk out of here unharmed and," he stood up slowly and made a show of putting his gloves back on, "the stoic Kimball Cho will keep pumping the iron as he usually does at this time. Lonely Kim will still be sitting in her apartment, reading yet another crime novel. And Grace and Wayne surely enjoy their common Thursday night out; a Baby is so demanding," Brady watched with pleasure when Lisbon visibly froze and her jaw muscles fought the tears threatening to come out. "Did you know that Jason loves to play 'Grand Theft Auto', at this very moment for instance. And Dennis Abbott, queor fella, isn't he? Always carries a sanitizer in his pocket. Right now he's enjoying a delicious dinner with his girlfriend in downtown Austin." Brady paused and savored the moment.

"And last, but not least, Patrick Jane. He's some man. A pity what happened to his wife and daughter. It's a horrible fate when the thing you love the most is taken away from you," he said, casting her a meaningful look. "Cozy little trailer he got himself there. Must be nice to wake up to the view. It'd be a pity if he'd never get to see it again, wouldn't it?" Brady smirked again at Lisbon's obvious distress as she pulled nervously at her shirt sleeves.

"If you come close to any of them, I swear I'll make your life a living hell," she threatened through gritted teeth.

But Brady wasn't vexed and replied somberly: "I've already been there. But nonetheless, I promise you I won't harm them if you keep your gorgeous mouth shut. Really, it's in your hands, _Teresa_," he told her, ready to go. Before leaving, he took something out of his coat pocket and placed it on the coffee table in front of her. "This is a game between you and me. But one word to any of them and they _will _die. And now," he went, turning around when he stood underneath the archway. "Sweet dreams. We'll see each other soon enough. Always remember: 'Home, sweet home.' "

Lisbon looked after him until he was swallowed by the darkness. A few seconds later she heard the front door being shut; and her body slumped into the couch. But she didn't cry. There were no tears. Only exhaustion. Overwhelming exhaustion.

When her eyes dropped, her sight fell on the coffee table and on the carved knight Brady had placed there. What had he once told her? _"The knight is most powerful in closed positions, because of his ability to jump over other pieces." _The meaning behind it wasn't lost on her. In one smooth movement Lisbon grabbed the wooden piece and threw it forcefully into the fire.

When the DHS would inform her team about Brady, it wouldn't be long until they'd find out. And if Brady found out they knew, he would kill them—every single one.

_"You know what I want." _And then there was this. He'd found all of them, within two months. _How long will it take him_... Her thoughts stopped midsentence. She had no other choice, she needed to stop him. And to do that she had to make some preparations.

xxxxxxxxxx

The next morning, Lisbon watched the familiar room, known as the bullpen, with interest, and rising turmoil.

Where the chairs for the team normally sat in front of the screens a conference table was placed instead, Jane perched on the edge. On top of the table lay laptops, folders and lots of other papers in numerous colors, as well as the occasional coffee mug. All requested by the agents from DHS and State Department.

Abbott stood right next to the them, while Fischer was at his right, facing the rest of the team. Other agents of different units, amongst them Marcus, had been called in too. It made the bullpen look like a shoebox, Lisbon thought, settling next to Cho, who leaned against his desk.

Agent Cox of the State Department, average height and sporting a short ponytail of dark-blond hair, was standing right in front of the many screens. He closed a file he'd been reading and addressed them.

"May I have your attention please," Cox said in a firm, calm voice. "My name is Lawrence Cox, I'm working for the State Department. These are my colleagues, Agents Rosenberg and Perez from Homeland Security," Cox explained, pointing at the two other men.

"Agent Abbott has informed the DHS about two cases you are currently working on, in circumspection of a possible terrorist background, as the men that are responsible for Mr. Townsend, Mr. Reilly and Mr. Blackstone's deaths are exuding signs of a military and a possibly foreign background.

"Now, the reason I'm here is simple. I'm here to tell you that these men you are looking for are far more dangerous than you expected. From now on this case will have top priority. Agents Rosenberg and Perez, as well as Agent Abbott are already briefed on the subject. So they will assist me once I'm finished, in case in one has questions."

In this moment you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone eyes were glued on Cox, even Jane restrained himself from making a witty remark about Cox's hair that was on the tip of his tongue.

Cox signaled for one of the IT's to load something up on the screen behind him. Tucking his hands in the pockets of his dark blue suit, he let his eyes wander over the attending agents. The IT lifted his hand and Cox nodded with affirmation when the mug shot of a man filled the screens.

Lisbon unconsciously dug the nails of her fingers deep into her arms when she crossed them to guard herself from the ice-blue gaze staring down at her and the team, the same gaze that just several hours ago had been only a few inches away from her. There, on the several screens, Liam Brady's face throned above them.

Cox let the effect Brady's image had on the agents settle down before he picked up his speech again. "This is Captain William Brady. Highly intelligent, well spoken and educated. Winner of several chess tournaments throughout the world, and most importantly... member of the Irish Republican Army. Brady was the head of an IRA unit whose prestige amongst the comrades was without equal. We count several bombings, attacks on politicians, as well as organized assassinations on designated citizens in Europe, as well as here in the US, to their account. With focus on Weapon deals."

Lisbon was pretty certain her already pale complexion had just turned transparent. A state of being she would love to enter right now, so she could just disappear before someone got wind of the obvious forlornness she felt. Lisbon focused back on Cox who waved his hand again. Promptly the images of the crime scenes came up on two of the other screens, while Brady's profile stayed plastered on the rest.

Just before Cox was about to continue, Jane felt the need to intervene. "Excuse me...uh, Lawrence, but if this man is the one we're looking for, why do you speak of him in past tense?"

All eyes went back to Cox who smiled benignly. "Ah, Mr. Jane I take it. I've heard a lot about you. I'm looking forward to your insights. Now, the reason I'm using past tense is that Brady's unit doesn't officially exist anymore, or rather _didn't _exist until a few weeks ago. Apparently he has relocated some of his ex-comrades."

Signaling a change of plans, the screens altered again. This time a few pictures of a mansion and surveillance pictures of other men armed with automatic guns surfaced. And Lisbon actually stopped breathing for a moment.

The mansion, looming over a wide garden with all kinds of flowers, was reminiscent in its architecture of a Palladian country house, surrounded by a beautiful Forrest. If one should ask, she could tell them precisely what the interior looked like. She couldn't repress the emotional sniffle beating its way out of her. Cho heard it and tilted his head around. "You okay?" he whispered.

Lisbon smiled self-consciously and nodded. "Yeah, I think I'm just coming down with something," she mimicked his tone. Cho raised an eyebrow, but she was saved on further questioning when his attention was commanded back by Cox.

"The house you see here behind me was one of the residences of Mr. Brady. It is also the place where he was taken in custody fifteen years ago, by a clandestine task force going by the codename 'ITF'..."

Cox was cut off by Jane who perused him sharply. "How clandestine? When you said that there was a little crease between your brows," he said and pointed at his own. "You're not approving of this unit?"

Cox smirked and crossed his arms in front of him. "You are right. Well, the ITF was a unit comprised of agents from all over the states: CIA, FBI, State Department, DHS, down to the local police departments. Only a very few people knew, and know, about its existence. Years ago some of the higher ups in several of the mentioned departments got sick of national and international organizations operating their dirty businesses. It took years to make busts, mostly ending with the biggest crime evidenced being tax evasion. And so they created the ITF and set on cleaning house_―_so to speak.

"It worked well, I have to admit but...um," Cox pinched his nose, turning his gaze on Jane. "Let's just say, the ITF worked, in a way, like the 'Blake Association'. I'm sure you're familiar with, Mr. Jane. Way to opaque to have the privileges they had. Even though the unit got disintegrated after the whole Brady debacle, the agents names are classified and it's "tricky" to get a look at their files. But that's a point we'll get to later. Anyhow, the matter of fact here is that a lot of people were involved in the apprehension of Brady."

"Ah," Jane said and smiled in understanding. Lisbon was sure that if this were a comic, a light bubble would be blinking over his head. "Before you say anything else. Since you and your Homeland buddies are convinced Brady is the man behind these murders; I'm guessing he made a run for it and now is on a rampage to get to the people that were responsible for his arrest...nah Lawrence, hold on," Jane told him with a raised hand when Cox opened his mouth to speak. "The question is why are you so well informed about this? Abbott only called DHS yesterday morning and now here you are with all these papers and diagrams and photos... Ah, _of course_, Townsend and Blackstone weren't the first victims. And you made a connection because you know the people who died had something to do with Brady's arrest, is that right so far?" Jane looked at Cox expectantly.

Lisbon knew she shouldn't be, but she was again astounded by the speed with which Jane's brain worked. It was like he only needed specific pieces to a puzzle to put it together flawlessly, while everyone else was still searching for the pieces with the clean sides that unmistakably said: 'I'm Part Of The Frame'.

She had not the slightest idea how she'd managed to keep her secret from Jane until now...well, okay, she knew how. She'd had to resort to subterfuge, and Lisbon wasn't proud if it. Jane had greeted her almost formally this morning, not looking at her once more since then, and it seemed as if he was pretending their second encounter in the storage room hadn't happened. As much as her heart clenched at the thought of that, after Brady's visit she felt sure she'd kept her secret from Jane, even if it meant hurting him. Lisbon looked back at the face of the man who was responsible for ending all of her dreams: Past, present and future.

"Yes, Mr. Jane, that is correct. You see when Brady got arrested he was, uh, _shipped _to Russia. Townsend provided the necessary conveyance, while Blackstone supplied the security. Like I said, the modus operandi of the ITF wasn't exactly according to the law, and so personal contractors played a big part in their arrests."

Cho, who just like anyone else had been listening dutifully, straightened next to Lisbon. "Why did they bring him to Russia?"

"Because as interesting of a catch as Brady was, the person they were really after was a phantom; someone who was only known under the name _'Arbiter_'. And it was an established fact Brady was one of the very few people who know who 'Arbiter' was. They believed that in Russia they would have a better chance of... making him talk. Unfortunately, several weeks ago, Brady managed to escape with help from some of his old friends..." Cox continued telling the team what Lisbon already knew from her meeting with Sinclair.

Zoning out Lisbon tried to arrange the facts in her mind, biting absently on her thumbnail again. Fixing her eyes back on the cold eyes staring down from the screens, her thoughts drifted back to when she heard the name William Brady for the very fist time...

_**Fifteen Years ago...in San Francisco**_

_"Who is he?" Lisbon asked the two men calmly facing her on the other side of the table in a back room of a downtown bar._

_ Timothy Sinclair, who, she thought, seemed pretty young still for being the head of a intelligence task force, spoke up. "This is William Brady, everyone calls him Liam, Captain in the IRA. We want his boss. But only Brady," Sinclair paused, tapping on the picture in front of Lisbon, "knows who that is."_

_ Samuel Bosco, her mentor and boss at the San Francis__co PD―and as she just __recently __found out__, member of a confidential task force—saw Lisbon wasn't sure what to think of this and spoke up. "Look Teresa, we've been trying to catch this guy, who we only know under the name 'Arbiter', for years, but we always came up empty. It's almost as if he's a ghost. Brady does his bidding, executes his orders. That's why we never even gotten close to him."_

_ "Then why don't you just arrest Brady?" Lisbon interrupted, the confusion evident in her voice._

_ It was Sinclair who answered. "Because if we arrest Brady they know the jig is up and they'll just destroy everything we could possibly use against them; and then they'll vanish into thin air. Brady wouldn't talk, and we'd be left with nothing. That's why. We need 'Arbiter', and enough evidence for their "business transactions" to bust them and make sure this little IRA branch is entirely disabled."_

_ "Okay, but what do you want from me?" Lisbon asked perplexed; she was a trained police officer and these men were most likely a few of the most vicious people on the planet. Surely some trained agent of the FBI, or better yet CIA, would be better suited for this._

_ She had read the file about this group the night before. Brady's, or more like 'Arbiter's' unit, was responsible_ _for several bombings and other attacks in Northern Ireland, which had also killed a lot of children. They had made their money with arms deals, drugs and protection money. Lisbon believed there was nothing they hadn't done._

_ "Good question, I see why you would think that us hiring you for this seems...strange. But the truth is, after everything we tried, we're getting slightly desperate. In spite of our best efforts we haven't gotten anywhere, and so we have to resort to something we usually try to avoid," Sinclair caught Lisbon's eyes. "Infiltration. We've decided to send someone in to get in contact with Brady and via him get close to 'Arbiter'," he paused for dramatic effect. "And that someone is you."_

_ A bemused smile spread across Lisbon's face and she snorted. "Yeah right. Me? Undercover? Infiltrating a man who, according to you, is one of the most dangerous men you've ever come across...hold on," Lisbon raised her hand to forestall Sinclair's objection. "Bosco told me what you, Mr. Sinclair, think of him, so don't try to play this down." _

_ "Sam wasn't laying it on thick when he said you were one of the spunkiest ladies there are. See, and that's why I'm convinced you will be able to get into the inner circles. You are witty, you know your way around a man's world, which is a trade one shouldn't underestimate when dealing with a bunch of mislead macho soldiers. You are intelligent, determined, persistent and... honest." _

_ Lisbon looked at him, confused. "Honest? And you think of that as a good trate when going undercover?"_

_ "In this case, yes," Sinclair replied. "Do you know what the biggest problem we've had with undercover agents is?" He didn't give her time to answer. "They're so well trained, and know how to lie so convincingly that a lot of them forget themselves within the lie. You see, when someone is a natural liar they seems to be perfect for such tasks; but unfortunately they also have a natural tendency to switch their allegiance. I've seen this happen many times; corrupt cops, agents. The money they encounter on their assignments is just too tempting. I won't risk false information, and possible deaths of agents that could get busted, by sending someone in I can't trust a hundred percent."_

_ "But these men know how to spot cops a mile away. I won't last a second."_

_ "I wasn't finished Ms. Lisbon. The reason we are convinced you will help us crack this case is because of just the personality trates I told you you possess, and... your looks," Sinclair grinned lopsided, while Bosco shifted uncomfortably in his chair next to him._

_ "My _looks_?" She asked, puzzled as to why this man thought that would be of help._

_ "Mr. Brady has a certain... _type_," Sinclair glanced at Bosco who picked up a small folder and pushed it over the table in front of Lisbon. She opened it and found herself looking at an array of photos; all of them featured a different woman, but Lisbon had a hard time distinguishing between them. They all had dark brown to black hair, the shape of their face was just minimally different; lots of them had freckles, and though their eye color varied it was clear he favored green eyes. _Of course_, Lisbon thought, _he's looking for the perfect Irish girl. _And if she was honest, she knew she would fit right in there._

_ When her eyes widened, Sinclair took it as his cue. "Ah, you see it now. I won't lie; our biggest reasoning to assign you with this is the fact that we know Brady will take a shine to you. You aren't just his type physically, but also your personality fits to a T. We've compiled profiles of these women and it becomes very obvious Brady likes tough, but at the same time... how do I put it? Um, _motherly _types. Of course that's just scratching the surface, but like I said, you're perfect."_

_ Lisbon took short offence at the word 'motherly'; she'd had her fill of that and it made her sound girly. But then she gulped, trying to get to the bottom of Sinclair's interest in her. "Uh, I'm sorry, but _what _exactly is it you want me to do? I mean, how do you propose I will get close enough to Brady to make him tell me?" she asked timidly. _

_ "We have an insider among the Irish mop in Chicago, Stuart Downey, he will connect you with Brady who right now is looking for a new arms dealer. Downey will tell him he found one; you. You will strike a deal with Brady that will keep you in close contact with him. He makes those deals himself, doesn't trust anyone else; and then we hope he'll make sure you're going to stick around."_

_ "Because I'm his type?" _

_ "Yes," Sam answered gently, she could see Bosco wasn't in favor of this turn of events, but he wouldn't object to his boss. _

_ "Ms. Lisbon, a lot of children have died; and will continue to die if we don't catch 'Arbiter'. _You _could save their precious lives," Sinclair enticed her, his eyes boring into hers._

_ Three days later she accepted._

Lisbon was brought back to present when Cox finished his tale and set on explaining Brady's M.O.

"Brady's course of action is always to go after the family first, people who are close to the ones he wants to harm. He kills them; women, children, doesn't matter to him. He makes you watch before ending your life. When Brady was in Russia he confessed to a few murders that up ′til then had been cold cases. He told the interrogators it's the only way to make the enemy understand what they had done. That is was only satisfying when they realized their betrayal had killed their families."

"He wants revenge," Jane stated gloomily, a shadow crossing his face. This reminded him way too much of his own story. A family paying for the sins of one of their members. If Brady was anything close to McAllister, Jane swore that he would stop him.

"Yes," Cox agreed. "This brings us to our next point. Agent Perez," he motioned for the rather small agent to step up next to him. Perez had thick black hair, and a definite penchant for hair gel, reminding Lisbon, unwittingly, of Bob Kirkland, she thought, while examining the short man, who nervously kept adjusting his yellow tie that was patterned with aviaries, of all things.

Clearing his throat, Perez kept staring down on the papers and began to speak. "We...uh, we know that Brady is in possession of a list of names of the people that played a big part in his arrest. Meaning Brady is more than one step ahead of us. While we don't know who the people on his list are, he does. He knows their real names and therefore it's an easy job for him to track them down," Perez explained and then held up a piece of paper, finally meeting the agent's eyes and signaled to the IT who nodded and clicked a few keys.

"What I have here," he waved the paper in his hand, "and what you now see on the screen, are what we believe to be the list of names Brady is tracking down; or has already found. We received this list from the ex-unit chief of the ITF, Timothy Sinclair. Sadly the list was numerically coded, and though we already decoded it, this is all we got. As you can see these sentences don't actually make a lot of sense," Perez propounded, and everyone's eyes went to the list:

**Claim He is One Guy**

**China Tree is Creak**

**I Born in Conman Cell**

**Cigar is Art Said Me **

**Can't Irish in Harp Shed**

**An Ass Be It the King's Not**

**Warden i Never Got**

**Big Earl likes Raw Moth**

Jane scrutinized the list, and so did Lisbon. Her eyes immediately circled around one specific line, while she was inwardly seething. Just yesterday evening, Sinclair had forbidden her to tell the team, to tell Jane, about their past. And now here he was, hours after their conversation, handing Homeland Security an encoded list. It puzzled Lisbon though, why Sinclair hadn't just told them the real names... her train of thought was interrupted by Jane's voice.

"Double encoded. Decrypting the numbers gave you a list of seemingly nonsense lines, but these are codes for the real names."

"Not the _real _names, Mr. Jane. Behind these codes we'll find the alias' the agents used while working on the Brady case. But once we know the alias' we can get an insight to the files which contain the real names. This is why it's important to decipher the list. We only obtained it this morning, so our people just started working on it, but we heard you are a master decrypter Mr. Jane, so we're hoping you will maintain your reputation and be quicker than our experts."

Jane looked gleefully at the list in Perez' hands. He couldn't wait for this case to be over. He had a plan to hitch to pursue Lisbon. Hopefully this Brady guy would just be a blip on their radar; after all, Jane had hunted and stopped his own personal nightmare. How bad could Brady_―_compared to McAllister_―_be?

Eyes still on the list, Jane lifted his head and sensed Abbott had a question. "Why didn't you ask this ′Sinclair′ for the real names, instead of wasting time trying to decipher a code?"

Cox, Perez, and Rosenberg exchanged a look before Rosenberg answered, "He didn't exactly _hand_ the list over. We found it amongst his possessions. In his suitcase to be exact. Apparently he'd been traveling," Rosenberg paused, and Lisbon felt a cold shiver engulfing her in anxiety of what would be his next words.

"This morning he and his wife were found dead by the US Marshall who..."

Before Rosenberg could finish his sentence, Lisbon spoke without thinking, "What?" she asked, her voice hollow. All eyes now on her, except Jane's who made a habit of ignoring her this morning, she straightened and coughed to clear her throat. "I mean...um, what happened?"

Rosenberg waved is hand in direction of the IT who immediately changed the content on the screen again. "Our team sent us these crime scene photos," Rosenberg informed them, and Lisbon felt paralyzed seeing the man, she just recently talked to, sitting up on a bed against the headboard, sleeve rolled up and a syringe loosely hanging in the crook of his arm.

"His wife got shot; Sinclair was found with an overdose of heroine in his system. They tried to make it look like a suicide again. Last week, Sinclair, who'd resumed his work for the CIA since the fall of the ITF, had arranged for his wife and son to be brought to a safe house. Claiming they might be in danger by someone from a former case, but he didn't mention Brady."

"Why would he keep silent about this?" Fischer asked, curiosity piqued.

"No idea. But we have our suspicions. When we investigated Benjamin Gilles' death it looked like it was him who got paid for information. There was a good amount of cash on his account, _but _Mr. Gilles wasn't of any rank to be in ownership of the necessary security codes, which are needed to get any kind of information about the Brady mission."

Lisbon felt sick. The lump in her throat getting bigger and bigger. This had to be a misunderstanding.

Abbott scoffed. "You think Sinclair sold out his own people?"

"We're afraid so."

"But then why did he carry it around if he already told Brady the real names?" Lisbon asked, hanging on to the little thread of trust she'd had in Sinclair. "Maybe you're wrong, maybe he was on his way to warn his ex-team members, and Brady foisted the list amongst his stuff?"

"I think Agent Lisbon is partly right," Jane cut in, narrowing his eyes on the crime scene photos. "Sinclair wouldn't need the list to trace these agents, he knew their real names. But he couldn't trust Brady not to kill him and his family, so he printed the list with the codes. He was working for the CIA, and you probably already interviewed him about Brady and his escape. He must have known it wouldn't be long until you found a connection to him and his role in this game. Sinclair must be the one person with the most information about this mission. He knew his family wouldn't survive if he didn't play along. Sinclair is not a traitor in the common sense... he... tried to protect his family," Jane sighed heavily. "There is _nothing _you wouldn't do to protect your family."

Lisbon averted her eyes from Jane's back, feeling the urge to take him into her arms, to tell him everything would be all right. It hadn't occurred to her before how similar Brady and McAllister acted, and that hearing about this must remind Jane of his own past.

"Brady found him, threatened him, and offered him a deal. He could take the money and give Brady the names, or his family would die. Then Sinclair brought his family to safety, thinking it would buy him some time during which he tried to find a way to stop Brady. Of course he couldn't just walk up to you guys," Jane explained, looking at Cox, Perez and Rosenberg. "You would have found the money on his account and immediately assume what you are assuming now. So instead he went on his own to track down the agents and alert them."

"Terrific job," Cho deadpanned.

Jane shrugged. "He needed to be on the look out. He knew Brady would keep an eye on him. And as it looks now, Brady saw Sinclair doing something that signed his death sentence." Jane frowned. "Perhaps he witnessed Sinclair talking to one of those agents. That would have been a breach in the contract."

Lisbon's head shot up. Sinclair was dead because of _her_. Because they'd met up. Brady came to her after she met with Sinclair_; _he'd followed her.

"Where is Sinclair's safe house?" Jane queried Cox.

"Wichita Falls."

"Texas. How convenient." Jane crossed his arms, frowned and looked back at Rosenberg. "Uh, you said you found Sinclair and his wife, but there was mention of a son too. What happened to him? He isn't on any the crime scene photos," Jane pressed on.

Rosenberg nodded. "He is fine. He was lying in his bed, sleeping, unharmed. He's being looked after by a social worker now. But we believe he was unaware of what went on in the house."

"Interesting," Jane muttered to himself, tapping his lower lip in thought.

Cox took over again, taking the list of names in his hands. "If you have any other questions feel free to ask either of us. For now, we'd like to have Mr. Jane take a look at this list. These people are in severe danger and we need to find them, fast. Brady is already on the move. Agent Abbott will split you into working groups. I want surveillance at every possible place. Sinclair's safe house was not too far from here, we hope there was a reason to relocate his family there. Also, our computer specialist is working on getting more surveillance footage from the day of Brady's arrest. Maybe some of the agents from the list will be in these images and we can cross-reference it with our data base." Cox looked at them encouragingly. "Well, let's get busy."

xxxxxxxxxx

Jane sat on his leather couch, engrossed by the list in his hands. From time to time Lisbon saw him scribbling something down. All around her, people were busy doing their part on trying to find Brady and his men, while she found herself standing in the middle of the bullpen, trying to come to terms with the fact that Sinclair was dead. Taking a look at her watch, Lisbon knew she didn't have a lot time left.

Glancing at Jane again, who just crossed something on the list, she hoped that her old boss had at least been able to warn one or two of them; the rest_―_except for her_―_were most likely dead.

Hesitating for a moment, not sure if it would be too much of a risk, Lisbon walked over to Jane, almost as if in trance, and sat down next to him. The bullpen was buzzing with people walking from one side to the other and back, chattering, pressing their ears to their phones, hitting the keys on their keyboards and carry boxes with dozen of documents across the room, trying to find a space that wasn't yet flooded by files and papers.

When she sat down, Jane didn't look up. And for a fleeting moment Lisbon thought that it might be better if she just left. But didn't he deserve some nice words? The last thing she'd said to him had been hurtful and mean. And her mother had always told her, one shouldn't leave people you loved fighting; you never knew if you'd ever get the chance to tell them that you love them again.

Considering what was going on, she wished their confrontation yesterday hadn't happened. It would make it so much easier. Instead she was sitting here, wishing she could turn back time. _Hypocrite_, Lisbon chastened herself. If she could turn back time she knew exactly what wrong she would undo, and it wasn't her own past.

"Are you all right?" Jane broke the silence, but still didn't look at her. "This is getting bigger than even I thought."

Lisbon sighed deeply. "I really wish you would stop asking me that."

"I can't help it. I will always worry about you... no matter what," he answered, and this time gave her a curt smile before his eyes returned to the page in front of him.

She smiled back, though he couldn't see it, and it occurred to her it was the first time today she wasn't feeling like the weight of the world hung upon her shoulders. Not surprisingly Jane was the source of her comfort.

Glancing down at her watch, she stood up again, taking in the sight of Jane sitting on his couch one last time. And, in this moment, she knew that her words from yesterday shouldn't be the last things said between them. "Thank you," she startled at her own voice, and Jane's hand stilled over the paper, his head twitching, but keeping his eyes down. "What I said... I, uh, thank you for everything you've ever said, or done, to make me feel better, I truly appreciate it. I realize I haven't been very vocal about it, but," she paused, the exhaustion she'd felt since the evening before making her almost numb." You have no idea what it has meant to me. What it _means _to me."

Again Jane seemed to wonder if he should look up_―_she could see his forehead wrinkle_―_but he didn't, as if he was afraid she wasn't real.

"Thank you... _Patrick_." And then with quick struts Lisbon was out of the bullpen and through the corridor.

Jane's head shot up at last, only to stare at her retreating form, itching to run after her, but for the first time in his life, he didn't know what to make of this. Had she been apologizing? Was she telling him this to make him understand that she had been wrong? Did she want him to come after her? It occurred to him that this was what it must feel like to be on the receiving end of one of those mixed signals. It was... ogreish.

And so he stayed put. Although his mind had trouble getting back on concentrating on the code. There were several things that seemed to be screaming inside his head that _something _was terribly wrong. He just didn't know if it was Lisbon, this case_, _or both_._

Standing with her hand on the door handle of her car, Lisbon took once last glance at the building behind her, praying her new family would be safe. Sinclair had failed at protecting his family_―_she would not.

xxxxx

"_Take good care of your final word. If your final say will hunt you in days ahead, then hold back the words, and let silence speak." __― __Michael Bassey Johnson_

xxxxx

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**A/N:** I know, I know, I'm really not making it any easier for them, but well, what do they say: "It'll all be worth it in the end" ;)

About the "The List", you are welcome to try and crack it, it'll work, and obviously I know that real decrypters wouldn't have any problems to solve those, but hey, I've got my limits, lol.

Reviews are very welcome, as always :)


	6. And Then There Was One

**A/N: **As always, many thanks to my amazing beta wimmer511 :)

And also, thank you to the new Follows/Fave's, and the ones who take the time to reply.

_Disclaimer: No, still don't own The Mentalist or any of it's characters._

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***Chapter 6*: ...And Then There Was One**

xxxxx

"_Sometimes, making the wrong choice is better than making no choice. A person who stands at the fork, unable to pick, will never get anywhere." __― Terry Goodkind_

xxxxx

Jane was so absorbed in cracking the list, he hadn't realized an hour had past by without Lisbon returning to the bullpen. To remain steadfast in his resolution to give her space_―_before going all in_―_he _w_as already getting hard to come by. Especially after her second emotional speech, in as many days_―_he felt slightly pistol-whipped. He truly had never been at such a loss of what to do. _Never _in his entire life. First she had ripped him a new one and then went all emotional_, _thanking him_. _He'd even heard her choking, holding back tears as she did.

A bothersome thought suddenly crossed his mind. _Headaches_, _fatigue_, _mood swings... _Jane gulped_, _lifting his eyes from the list. She couldn't be pregnant, could she? Well of course she _could_. He was sure she was absolutely healthy enough to conceive... however, the thought of her and _Marcus_, or _George_, holding a little wailing baby in their arms made him sick though. It shouldn't, a mini Lisbon would be adorable and beautiful... but, but it was more the father part that had his stomach churning.

He let his eyes scan the room; everyone was deeply engrossed in their allotted work, but Lisbon was nowhere around. And neither was Pike, who had been designated to sort through surveillance footage. Maybe she was hunching over a toilet seat right now with Pike busy holding her hair back... Scrunching his nose, Jane dropped his eyes back on the codes. A while ago he'd thought he'd cracked it but had been quickly disabused and was now in the very unpleasant situation to have to start all over again.

Three hours later Fischer and Co. were startled by a loud, high-pitched voice coming from the general direction of Jane's brown leather couch. Every agent present stopped at whatever he or she was doing and looked up at the golden-haired man in his blue-cotton suit who was waving the paper in his hands enthusiastically, blinding anyone with the accompanying thousand watt smile. Abbott who'd just entered the bullpen looked at him sharply and Jane's smile widened tenfold as he said, "I cracked the code."

Pleased with himself Jane wandered over to Fischer, Cox and Rosenberg who had been working at the conference table. They soon were joined by the rest of the team. Expectantly, Cox held out his hand. Jane couldn't help but notice the agents puffed up chest, the one that always came when Abbott entered the bullpen. It was like watching two silver backs battling out who was in charge. And though Cox was the one with all the information, and head of the Brady case, Abbott made it clear, with his body language, that this was his territory, and _he _decided how much space Cox was allowed.

"Bravo, Mr. Jane. It is true what they say about you. You are an asset to law enforcement in spite of your somewhat "dodgy" past," Cox told him, grinning down at the names. Jane decided he liked the man. "Agent Wiley could you get these names on this screen behind me, asap, please?"

Wiley nodded, excited he was able to help. "No problem, sir." Taking hold of the list he went back to his desk and started typing furiously.

Jane who'd followed Wiley with his eyes, frowned. "Where's Lisbon?" he asked purposefully cheerful; he had after all just cracked the list and still gloated, no need to sound like a puppy who'd lost track of his owner.

Fischer, who was bracing herself up on the table, lifted her head and mimicked Jane's action by surveying the room as a whole. "Don't know...but now that you mention it, haven't seen her for quite some time."

Spinning his head around, Jane looked at the rest of his colleagues quizzically who were all looking around in search of the missing brunette. But to Jane's disappointment no one lifted their hand to point at her, instead they all seemed confused.

"Wiley?" Jane yelled to diminish the mingling voices. "Do you know where Lisbon is? Did she say anything to you?"

But Wiley only looked back over his shoulder, shrugging helplessly. "No. Sorry." Jane's scowl deepened.

"Maybe she went to the rest room," Cho suggested.

"Four hours ago?" Jane scoffed, reflecting on the time. "Has _anyone _seen her in these last four hours... What was she supposed to do anyway?"

Abbott paused in concentration, obviously trying to remember what he'd designated Lisbon to do. "She was supposed to examine the old files from the ITF Agent Cox brought along; together with Franco and Humphries." Abbott swiftly turned to one of the mentioned agents who conveniently passed the entry right in this moment. "Hey, Franco. Have you seen Lisbon?"

But Franco too shook his head. "No_―_actually, come to think of it, we haven't seen her at all today."

"But she was assigned to your team," Abbott pressed.

"Um, yeah, but she hasn't shown up. Humphries and I were so busy we didn't notice her absence."

Abbott sighed, brows drawn together. "Okay... thanks." Franco gave him a nod and maneuvered himself through the mass of people crowding the room, passing Pike who re-entered the bullpen from the other side with a fresh cup of coffee in hand. He joined the rest of the team, addled by the strained looks on his colleagues faces.

"Hey, anyone seen Lisbon? I brought her a coffee," Marcus explained and held up the mug for everyone to see. Open-mouthed, he watched the people around the table staring blandly back at him. "Um, did I say something wrong? Or do I have something in my face?"

Jane rolled his eyes, but was also a bit relieved. If Marcus was bringing her coffee she couldn't be pregnant...unless of course he didn't know yet. _Damn_. "No," Jane told him curtly. "We're wondering the same thing, we can't find her."

Marcus immediately did the same as everyone else, he looked around the bullpen, frowning when he came up empty and turned his head back, placing the mug down on the table. "Weird."

Now everyone was looking as if they were trying to solve the hardest riddle known to mankind. Jane racked his brain for any hint that might be lurking in the back of his mind, although he hadn't looked up that much during the past hours, one's subconscious took in more than one believed. Maybe he _had _seen her after her hasty retreat.

The uneasy feeling in his gut suddenly seemed to increase, when he replayed what she'd said to him before she'd left. If he dissected it, he'd have to admit it had sounded a lot like a... _Goodbye. _With wide eyes staring at an empty spot, Jane replayed a scene in his mind's eye that he'd often dreamed about in the two years on the Island; a scene he wished could have ended differently. It occurred to him that Lisbon's speech sounded just like the one _he _had told _her _when they stood in front of the sunset, right before he'd... ditched her.

His unwelcome musings were interrupted by Fischer. "All I can say is that Lisbon isn't one to just abandon her duties. Without a word to anyone at that," she said and drew in a sharp breath. "Maybe something happened to her on the...uh...I better go check the rest room." Before anyone could stop her Fischer was gone.

Meanwhile Wiley had finished his task. "I-I'm ready with the list," he said cautiously, sensing his colleagues preoccupation.

Cox cleared his throat like a teacher demanding the attention of his class back and said, "Yes, we should get back to work. I'm sure Agent Lisbon will return soon."

While the others acknowledged Cox with a short nod, Jane shot him a disgruntled look. _Sure_, he thought, finding Brady was important, but finding Lisbon and making sure she was all right was _more _important_―_to him anyway. Jane decided he didn't like Cox after all.

Glancing at Pike though, he saw he wasn't the only one worried, and not pleased about Cox order. He should feel miffed, but he couldn't, Pike truly cared about Lisbon, and he couldn't dislike someone whose only fault was to fall in love with the most precious woman on earth. Well, maybe he could, a tiny bit.

Wiley made a few clicks with his mouse, and the list was displayed on the screen behind Rosenberg. Promptly everyone around the table skimmed the names, and Cho asked: "How'd you do it?" Actual curiosity shining through in his voice.

Jane wetted his lips, thoughts still on Lisbon. "Uh, well, it was tricky... but in the end quite simple," Jane answered in a far away tone.

Cho had the feeling Jane wasn't really listening, half his brain being occupied with Lisbon. But since Jane was Jane, half a brain was enough to still be more aware of his surroundings than anyone else was. He'd always envied this skill of their Mentalist_―_not that he would ever tell him so, the man's ego was big enough as it was.

"The way the code is done leads you to think far more complicated than you need to. They used something to confuse the person who's trying to crack it. You see," Jane started, now pointing at the list on the screen; gaining everyone's attention. "Important to crack the code is to consider only the words with the capital letters. The uncapitalized word is irrelevant for the name itself, you could say it fulfills the function of a blank character to section last and first name. The words in front yield to the first name; last ones reveal the surname. The words themselves are simple anagrams," Jane finished. The usual smug smile he wore when proving that he once again really was the smartest guy in the room was absent, Cho noticed.

Just in this moment Fischer returned, and the harried look on her face told Jane all he needed to know: Lisbon was gone. "Sorry to interrupt," she said, her eyes automatically flying to the screen. "Lisbon seems to have v-vanished, she..." Fischer trailed off.

"She?" Jane and Pike prompted simultaneously.

Still gaping at the screen, she turned her eyes on Jane, but something on the monitor made her eyes switch back and forth. "Uh, she is not in the building, I happened to come across Nicole and..."

"Who?" Abbott interrupted.

Jane rolled his eyes, starting to become frustrated. "Who cares?" he snapped, ignoring Abbott's slightly affronted look and rounded back on Fischer. "And?"

"Um, Nicole said that she saw Lisbon leaving the building at around twelve-thirty," Fischer related to the men who were staring at her intently.

"Twelve-thirty, that was about four hours ago," Cho monotono

usly supplied, taking a look at his watch. "That's when you saw her last, right Jane?"

"Yes," he answered flatly, his eyes had never left Fischer. "What is it?"

"Excuse me?" she queried, lines forming between her brows.

Jane took a calming breath. "When you came back to tell us about Lisbon, you read the list and something on there made you pause. What was it?"

Fischer's eyes widened in understanding, her mouth forming into an 'O'. "Oh, that. Well I just thought it an odd coincidence."

"There are no coincidences," Jane told her tightly. "What is it?"

"Um, I'm not sure if I should say this, Lisbon asked me not to tell anyone," Fischer started, but when her gaze crossed Jane's angry one, and Pike looked at her hauntingly, she changed her mind. "It's just, the third name on it," she pointed at it, and all eyes sought out said name on the screen.

**Claim He is One Guy - Michael Younge**

**China Tree is Creak - Catherine Acker**

**I Born in Conman Cell - Robin McConnell**

**Cigar is Art Said Me - Craig Armistead**

**Can't Irish in Harp Shed - Christian Shephard**

**An Ass Be It the King's Not - Sebastian Kingston**

**Warden i Never Got - Andrew Trengove **

**Big Earl likes Raw Moth - Gabriel Wortham**

"Yesterday, I stumbled upon her in the rest room, and she was talking to herself, saying: _'Robin is dead', _repeatedly. When I asked who Robin was, she said he had been a friend who died years ago, and that his anniversary had been a few days ago," she informed them slowly, eyes shifting back and forth between her colleagues. "You think there's a connection?"

For a while no one said anything, some staring at the name_ '_Robin McConnell_' _as if willing it to speak.

"How did she sound ?" Jane asked, without looking at Fischer. "What was the first thought that crossed your mind when you heard her speaking?" Fischer frowned, trying to remember. "No. Don't think, just say what crossed your mind," Jane instructed her, now observing the leggy agent.

"Ugh, I just thought it sounded... weird. As if she was _reminding herself, _not remembering. Does that make sense?" she asked uncertainly, but Jane ignored her.

Eyes glued on the screen, Jane suddenly felt as if Lisbon herself had punched him in the stomach. "How fast can you get these files Cox?"

Hearing the urgency in Jane's voice, Cox replied, "We should have them in a few minutes, now that we've got the alias'. I'll go and make the call."

"Jane?" Abbott asked. "You think Lisbon knew this 'Robin'?"

Jane shook his head. "I'm not sure yet, but if my hunch is right then... then Lisbon is in mortal danger," he said with a grave voice. He was a master at deception and lies, but right now, all he wanted to do was scream. How had he not seen this, not made the connections? Of course it was entirely possible he was wrong... _yeah right,_ and the Easter Bunny actually existed.

Cho's eyes widened in astonishment when he caught up with Jane's train of thought. "You think she's on the list! You think _Lisbon _is one of the people Brady is after?"

The others had befuddlement written all over their faces.

"But...," Fischer began, but the words were stuck in her throat when the implication of what this would mean hit her fullforce. Pike had given up on trying to follow what all this meant and decided to wait for explanations.

While everyone was trying to process what Jane's hunch could mean, and that his were usually correct, Cox came rushing back. "Good news. My agents told me they finally found some surveillance footage from the day Brady was arrested, at his home in Salt Lake City. They're sending them over now. That should give us a look at some of the people on the list. And the personal files should be arriving soon as well."

Three minutes later, in which Jane had been unusually quiet, the team was going through different images. Wiley had enlarged them in case it was necessary. There were several with black sedan's and SUV's parked in the wide open driveway. Many men, dressed in windbreakers and sunglasses, were spread all over the estate. Some other men, wearing jeans or black pants, were being lead to the waiting cars in handcuffs. Others lay unmoving on the ground_―_shot.

Then there were several of Brady himself. He stood on a balcony, reminding Jane of a king watching his people, staring lukewarm at the scene below him. Jane's eyes fixed on one image in particular. On this one, Brady, with hands in his pockets, seemed to be transfixed on something on the driveway. "Wiley, enlarge the one at the top left," Jane said.

Having done that, Wiley waited for further instructions, but Jane was busy reading Brady's bodylanguage. His stare was almost... _tender_, if Jane had to describe it. He wondered what it was Brady was looking at. "Is there one taken at the same time, but focusing on the driveway instead?"

With another click Wiley enlarged another one, in which Brady was still visible but tiny in the background. The figure in the center though was what made everyone in front of the screens gasp out loud at once.

Jane on his part, understood now what_―_or rather _who―_was capable of making a man like Brady look at anything with such fond eyes. He himself did it all the time. Every time he looked at no other than Teresa Lisbon.

xxxxxxxxxx

When the plane touched down Lisbon jolted awake. Head spinning around, she took in her surroundings, memories of the last days coming back, making her grumble at the realization that it hadn't just been a bad dream.

By the time she had arrived at the Austin airport, she must have broken several traffic laws in her haste to catch the flight to Chicago. She had looked up the flight once Brady had left the night before. Jane would've been proud_―_if he could get past the fact that she'd managed to sneak away and to actually pull one over him, Lisbon thought ruefully. Glancing at her watch, she wondered if the team had already noticed she was gone. It had been several hours now after all.

A good forty minutes later she stepped out of 'O'Hare International Airport', lifting her gaze to the overcast sky. It was getting dark, as usual in late November in Chicago. And judging by the drizzle coming down it would start raining soon, if not even snowing a little.

Hailing a cab, she stepped in, placing the packed sports bag on her lab. "Where to Miss?" asked the driver, looking at her through the reviewmirror.

Lisbon gazed into space through the window, and instructed without hesitation: "West Cortez Street, 2250. Please."

xxxxxxxxxx

Approximately half an hour later the cab stopped in front of the Orthodox Cathedral with its old red masonry, three steps leading up to three heavy doors. After paying the driver, Lisbon got out and waited until the cab had vanished around the next corner. Then she walked to the backdoor of , pausing in front of the back door with her fist held up and knocked.

Lisbon waited a good two minutes, wrapping herself tightly in her thin leather jacket. Once again, she absently thought, she should have grabbed her coat. Watching her breath forming little figures in the cold, the wooden door finally opened and an older man with a bushy white beard appeared in the passage.

Without saying a word the man looked at her intensely and Lisbon clutched the straps of her bag tighter, her chin pulled inside the turned up collar to protect her mouth from the cold. When the man still said nothing, she choose to take the lead. "I-I'm looking for Katya. Does she still...work here?" Lisbon asked hoarsely.

The man sized her up for what felt like ages, then stepped back and signaled her to come inside. Still silent, he signed for her to sit down on one of the old creaking chairs in the corner of the small room that contained a desk, a few time-worn paintings of Saints and the Church itself, and a couch, which had Lisbon's thoughts drift back to Jane. Once Jane had cracked the code they would have the names, and everything would eventually fall into place. This was why she had to act fast. Now she was sitting here, hoping Katya still lived here_―_or was alive at all for that matter.

Glancing at the clock on the wall she found it was just before six pm. It had been fifteen years that the two of them had last seen each other, and she was curious about what life had cast upon the blonde girl, daughter to Ukrainian immigrants and former NSA agent. They had been the only women back in the ITF that worked the Brady case and therefore they'd forged a bond. Katya had written her christmas cards_, _sporadically_, _in the years afterwards, but they never mentioned anything personal, only greetings; so Lisbon had no idea what had changed in the other woman's life.

Still caught up in her thoughts she noticed the figure coming out of the shadows too late. Squeaking, Lisbon jumped up from the chair and went a few steps back until she felt the edge of the wooden desk poking into her back. A soft chuckle vibrated through the air. "Reese, you have no idea how good it is to see you," said the mild voice that belonged to the pretty girl Lisbon had met so many years ago.

"Katie, you've spooked me," Lisbon breathed and smiled at Katya, to whom time had been generous. The once shoulder-length blonde hair, was now cut in a short bob, but she had almost no wrinkles, except for a few laugh-lines around her eyes and mouth. "But yeah, likewise. I didn't know if you were still here and if..." She left the words unspoken, but the shadow passing Katya's face and the fading smile spoke volumes.

Katya heaved a sigh and wrapped her arms around herself as far as she could. "Yes, Sinclair came here, about a week ago and told me. He said he was on his way to Texas, but didn't say why. It's the last I heard of him."

"_I_ live in Texas," Lisbon said in way of explanation, casting a cursory glance out of the window to her left. "Sinclair's dead." If she waited for a reaction, she was disappointed, and when the slightly taller woman remained silent, Lisbon continued. "I need a gun, or better yet: _guns_. I had to fly here so I couldn't take any of my weapons. Do you still...?" Again Lisbon didn't say the words, but Katya's self-deprecating smile and the curt shrug was answer enough.

"Sure, if you'd have had my job, you too would always keep a little arsenal nearby," she answered in a modulated tone. "So, why did you come here? To Chicago I mean. You wouldn't need me to get your hands on amunition."

Lisbon shook her head. "I'm here because I want to end it. He threatened people that mean a lot to me...and I know he's coming after me anyway." She swallowed and lifted her head back up, sticking her chin out in defiance. "I want this to happen on my terms; not his. I'm not gonna give him the control."

Katya nodded, biting the inside of her lip. "He's a dangerous man, no one knows that better than you do, and you wanna go after him _alone _in spite of that fact?" she asked doubtfully. "And what makes you think you'll find him here?"

"He paid me a visit and when he left he said I should remember: _'Home, sweet home'. _He always used to say that Chicago was his american home. He's here, trust me. Besides, I don't have another choice. Either he finds me or I find him. I chose the second option. I'm not gonna play sitting duck," Lisbon said matter-of-factly. "What about you? Has he been here?"

"No, not yet," Katya stated, but there was something in her voice, Lisbon couldn't pinpoint that made her tilt her head at the brown-eyed woman who tucked her hands in the beige cardigan she wore. "Um, do you have somewhere to stay the night?" Katya changed the subject and cast Lisbon a shallow smile.

"I-I was kinda hoping I could bunk at your place," Lisbon said sheepishly. "But it's probably not a good idea. I don't wanna put your kids in danger," she replied, pointing at a photo of Katya and two small children that rested on the desk.

"No, no," Katya interrupted her quickly. "It's okay. They're not home tonight, they're with their... grandpa. And I would love to help."

Lisbon smiled crookedly at the blonde. "Thank you. I know you're just as much in danger as I am, and me being here doesn't help."

Again the smile Katya sent her was curt and held something Lisbon couldn't identify. "Not your fault. We all were aware of what we were getting ourselves into. And don't thank me, Teresa. Not yet anyway."

Stretching her right arm in direction of the exit, to indicate to Lisbon they'd be leaving, Katya followed her and grabbed a key hanging by the door.

Outside it had started snowing lightly, just as Lisbon had predicted. For a moment she stood still and closed her eyes, letting the snow fall softly on her face. Then she walked up to Katya who was waiting for her at the end of the driveway.

xxxxxxxxxx

Jane and the team were staring at the files, containing information about "Operation Arbiter", including the ones of the agents recruited for this mission. The first one, naturally, was the file about Agent Robin McConnell. And it didn't surprise anyone anymore when it was a picture of a young Detective Lisbon attached to the made-up biography, as well as the real bio about Lisbon.

To Jane's surprise the made-up bio coincided with Lisbon's real life on the major points, in fact, the only thing different was her name, job description, and the schools she'd attended. Even her family history wasn't altered, except for the names. For the first time in a while Jane had to chuckle. Her bosses had apparently realized she wasn't much of a liar and provided her with as little to lie about as possible. Still, he couldn't ignore the hand that seemed to grip his stomach to tighten it when being confronted with Lisbon's "secret" life. Brushing the feeling off, Jane's focus was diverted when he felt the slight brush of Abbott's arm as his boss came to stand next to him. "Do we have the birth names now?"

Wiley nodded and hit a few keys. "Yes, sir. Just a second and _here...we... go_."

On the screen, next to the one with Lisbon's file, appeared the list of names again, now with the true identities appended. Franco and a few other agents were delegated to find these people and warn them_, _if they were still alive. No one dared to voice that it was more likely that they were dead.

It was the last name, however, that had Jane and Cho spoke in sync, flabbergasted: "Bosco?"

**Michael Younge - James Talbot**

**Catherine Acker - Katya Sorokin**

**Robin McConnell - Teresa Lisbon**

**Craig Armistead - Gregory Furnell**

**Christian Shephard - Alexander O'Brian**

**Sebastian Kingston - Dan Foster**

**Andrew Trengove - Bruce Pellham**

**Gabriel Wortham - Samuel Bosco**

"You know this Samuel Bosco?" Fischer asked, brows shooting up.

"You can say that," Cho nodded, while Jane was still trying to wrap his head around what they'd just discovered. Lisbon _and _Bosco were part of the unit that was responsible for bringing William Brady down. And now said man was on a revenge path murdering the people that had destroyed his life.

Suddenly the anger, already simmering inside of him, focused on the name of Lisbon's former mentor that had lost his life to Thomas McAllister and his minions. For Jane, the reason Lisbon was now on the run from a killer, that was just as vicious as McAllister, was obvious now: Samuel Bosco must have led a young and gullible Lisbon into this mess. When Bosco had lost his life Jane had gotten past his irritation with the older man, but now realizing that he'd played an apparently big role in Lisbon's designation, it turned all good thoughts Jane had about him back around.

Cho seemingly finding his equilibrium again, saw the need to explain the whole story further to Fischer and Co. who were expectantly watching the two of them. "Bosco was Lisbon's boss when she worked for the San Francisco PD, a few years after Lisbon had joined the CBI Bosco acceded too; and for a short while his team was in charge of the 'Red John' case," he cast a pensive glance at Jane who had bowed his head, hands in pockets, clenching his jaw. "But McAllister didn't like this turn of events and had Bosco and his team killed. We got the case back."

"Wow," Fischer said quietly. "So this Bosco guy and Lisbon knew each other pretty well."

Rosenberg who had been clicking through stuff on his laptop during Cho's tale, spoke up. "According to Agent Lisbon's file Samuel Bosco was the one who proposed her for the job to Sinclair, but it was only when they worked the Brady case that Sinclair gave it serious consideration. After they'd probed into her past and current life, she was solicited by both men and agreed to join the ITF a few days after the proposal. At the time she was an Officer at the SFPD, just like Agent Cho said. They made her undergo some basic training and then...she was wrangled in. "

That was when Franco came rushing back, obviously bearing bad news. "Boss," he said, addressing Abbott. "We tried to reach the possible targets to no avail. All past away by "natural" causes according to the local PD's. The other two, well, they _and _their families are dead, in both cases suicide preceded by homicide."

Abbott smiled grimly. "Of course. His usual approach. What about the woman... uh, Katya?"

"Katya Sorokin, was married eight years ago, now Katya Peters. We couldn't get a hold of her either," Franco related.

"What about her family?" Abbott queried.

Franco shook his head. "Her husband isn't answering his phone either, and her parents passed away four years ago."

Abbott curtly cussed under his breath, then turend to Franco again. "Call the local police and make sure they send someone by her house. We have to assume that Brady has gotten to her already.

"I don't know sir, there are no police reports so far. We might be lucky."

"Let's hope so, Franco" Abbott said, ending on a tired sigh. Then he took his cellphone and pressed a button.

"Who are you calling?" Fischer asked, arms crossed.

"Lisbon." Jane looked vigilantly at the phone pressed to Abbott's ear, scolding himself for not thinking about this first.

A few seconds later they heard a sound coming from inside Lisbon's desk. The teams eyes wandered to the place in front of Jane's couch. Before Jane could react, Abbott was already in front of it and opened one of the drawers. He looked inside and sighed. "Her phone, gun and badge are in here. Guess she won't answer my call then," he said sarcastically.

Agent Cox, who had been in a silent conversation with Perez, got up from the chair he'd been sitting in and addressed the team. "Looks like she ran. Not too surprising given her involvement. But Agent Lisbon can't possibly think she could hide from a man like Brady?" he asked incredulously.

"She isn't running," Cho shot back with dangerous edge to his voice, and Jane couldn't repress a smirk. Cho wouldn't let anyone insinuate anything ill about Lisbon, even if she wasn't his boss anymore. That made Jane pause, _he _should be the one doing this. "Lisbon has never been one to run from anything. She is a fighter. If she ran and left the things behind that _make her _her, then she had a reason."

"Like?" Cox prompted, but Cho just interlocked his arms and stared Cox's probing gaze down.

Cho relentlessly stared Cox down. "You told us Brady's usual M.O. is to go after the family. The only family Lisbon has are her brothers with whom she has almost no contact. She isn't married, nor has kids. For Lisbon _her team _was and is her family."

Jane's eyes widened. "You're a genius, Cho," Jane said, patting the Korean agent on the shoulder. "Brady must have threatened _us_, it explains her weird behavior during the last few days. She was tense, nervous, had been sleeping poorly... reminding herself of Robin. But she was afraid of what would happen if she talked to us. Still, she must have confided in someone..." Jane drifted off, then his eyes became huge as saucers. "The text!"

"What text?" Pike asked, feeling as if he was stuck in some foreign language movie that wasn't delivered with accompanying subtitles.

"I...uh, _found _a text message on her phone that said 'Tonight, six-thirty p.m., Usual place. George, S_.'. _First I thought she'd had a date..."

"What?" Pike asked flustered.

Jane ignored him. "But she met with Sinclair, '_S' _as in Sinclair."

"And who is George?" Pike wanted to know, his brows scrunched.

Abbott who was still standing at Lisbon's desk had an idea. "If it was Sinclair they probably had some distinctive venue to meet at from their time back then. Could 'George' be a hint at what Town or City to meet? They wouldn't risk meeting here in Austin."

"_George_... um, there's Georgetown up north, it's just about thirty minutes from here," Pike submitted.

Abbott nodded. "That would make sense, she left the office shortly before six. But still, we need to be sure it was Sinclair."

"Wait, the message must still be on her phone," Jane said and went over to Lisbon's desk, practically ripping the phone from Abbott's hands. He looked through the messages and frowned. "Huh, it's not on here. Either she deleted it or...," Jane studied the phone in his hands and grunted. "It's not the same phone." He wanted to smack himself. How had he not seen the phone was brand new. What the hell was wrong with him? Everytime people he loved needed him the most, his brain seemed to take a vacation. What good was his sharp mind if it let him down at the most important of times? "Lisbon and Sinclair must have met yesterday, Brady was following both or one of them, that's why Sinclair was killed. And Lisbon knew DHS would be here. The noose was getting tighter. She knew every moment we would find the images and get access to the files and find out. So she chose to run... to protect _us_."

"But why would she believe he won't come after her team anyway?" asked Perez.

"Mmh, good question, one I'm not sure I have the answer to yet," Jane explained, his eyes drifting shortly to the surveillance footage in which Brady was looking at Lisbon who was being lead into one of the cars, handcuffed.

Then Abbott clapped his hands. "That's enough. One of my agents is being hunted by this man. We need to find her before he does. Cho, Pike and Jane, I want you to drive to Lisbon's house, maybe you'll find something useful that will tell us where she went, or could be heading. Agent Fischer and I will try and contact Grace Van Pelt and Wayne Rigsby, they were part of Lisbon's team, they need to be made aware of a possible threat against them. And we need to contact her brothers. Let's go."

Abbott released everyone back to their work and without wasting another second Jane, Cho_, _and to Jane's disapproval, Pike,left the office, on their way to Lisbon's home.

xxxxxxxxxx

A three minute walk led Lisbon and Katya to a small, cosy house. It was hard to tell which color the veneer was with the front being almost entirely covered by ivy tendrils. Katya walked up to the door and inserted the key. Lisbon had hoped their reunion would be more pleasant. Katya hadn't spoken one more word all the way to her home, and Lisbon remembered her being more effusive; sometimes even forgetting to breathe once she started talking. Now Katya walked next to her, glancing absently on the pavement. So unlike the blonde bubbly girl from fifteen years ago.

Inside the house, the first thing Lisbon did was to shake the snow flakes, that had partly melted into water, off her jacket. Then she opened the zipper, but didn't take it off. Something felt wrong, she didn't know why, but she was contemplating leaving, despite the darkness, and find a room somewhere else. Guns first though.

When Katya opened the door to her dining room, Lisbon made up her mind. "Uh, you know, I don't want to impose on you, but would you mind getting me the guns first? I'd feel safer with it."

Katya looked unsure for a moment, but nodded. "All right, but we need to drive there, I keep them at an old storage com..." Lisbon's sharp laughter made Katya pause, looking perplexed before she knelt down on her dining room floor.

"Um, sorry, the word _storage..._just...forget it." Lisbon waved Katya's knitted eyebrows off. Then she watched her former colleague removing a plank and reaching inside the now open floor. Leaning over her shoulder she saw Katya releasing a gun from a duct tape which was pasted to the underside of another plank.

"Here, I too feel better if you have one." The brown-eyed woman held the gun out to her and grinned. "A Beretta ninety-two FS, caliber nine millimeter, short recoil, delayed blowback system, exceptional accuracy. I know you favor Glocks, but this will have to do."

Lisbon grinned back, checking the gun to get comfortable with it before tucking the small arm in the waistband of her jeans. "Thanks. Already feeling better."

"Good, I-I just have to check up on the kids. Then we can go," Katya said and went upstairs, with her cellphone in hand, dialing a number.

Subsequently, Katya returned and they left in her Lexus. They missed the police car coming to a stop in front of Katya's house a few minutes later.

xxxxxxxxxx

When Katya stopped the car, they had arrived at an old storage compartment near Monroe harbor. Stepping out into the cool night air, the uneasy feeling Lisbon felt creeping up her bones since meeting with Katya increased ten-fold.

_Maybe I'm getting paranoid_, Lisbon thought. All the way there, the skinny woman next to her had held the wheel in a death grip; knuckles turning white. Lisbon hadn't asked the questions that were on the tip of her tongue though, she needed Katya's arsenal. Once she had a few back-up guns, she'd excuse herself.

Lisbon trotted behind her ex-colleague until they came to a stop. Looking around Lisbon noticed the street was now out of sight_―_and so were they_. _Surrounded by piles of containers. Instead of getting her keys Katya looked unsure at a container in front of her. "This is it," Katya said in a detached tone, still not making a move.

"Well, then why don't you open it?" Lisbon forced a smile into her voice, watching her former friend closely. Unseen, Lisbon slowly moved her right hand to her back, lifting her jacket in the process and rested it over the butt of the Beretta.

Keys dangling between her fingers Katya turned to Lisbon, mouth open as if about to say something. But before she was able to, Lisbon froze, with her eyes wide open, when suddenly,without warning,blood started to drip out of a small hole between Katya's eyes that made her knees give in and left the woman to slump dead on the ground.

Still trying to register what was happening, Lisbon pulled the Beretta out by default, turning around in the direction in which the shot must have come from. However, in the exact same moment she felt an enormous pain coursing through her whole body, unable to move a muscle, she broke down and fell backwards, her head hitting the pavement.

One of the last things she heard were pairs of footsteps coming closer, but she was on her way to passing out and was having trouble keeping her eyes open. A second later she felt a figure looming over her, right before she felt the gentle touch of fingers at her chin, turning her tilted head back up again. And with the last of her strength, she looked into the face of the grinning man kneeling next to her, his face only a breath away from hers.

"Welcome home, _my love_."

And then... everything went black.

xxxxx

"_The truth is rarely pure and never simple." __―__ Oscar Wilde_

xxxxx

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**A/N: **Whoops, that didn't go exactly as Lisbon had planned, but where would be the fun it that ;) **  
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Let me know wha you think, I love reviews :)


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